Jose Mourinho has shown on numerous occasions that any game involving Chelsea is a matter of pressing concern, and so it was at Ibrox on Saturday. The Portuguese appeared piqued as his team lost 2-0 to an inferior Rangers side who took advantage of Chelsea’s recurring bluntness in front of goal.

Rangers flattered to deceive with two goals from Filip Sebo and Nacho Novo inside the last seven minutes, but that fact will be an irrelevance to Mourinho. Chelsea’s finishing was either laboured or downright scatty, and just as intriguing is whether their manager has assembled the correct components for the new campaign.

Mourinho was no disengaged bystander at Ibrox. His repeated prancings to the touchline, one arm stiffly raised like an agitated traffic cop as he implored his team, were a further sign of an intense, obsessive coach and perhaps even a man feeling a hint of apprehension about the season ahead.

Chelsea’s preseason labours have proved steady without being spectacular and this defeat made it three wins, a draw and a loss in their five outings so far. Mourinho’s men face Brondby in Copenhagen tomorrow night and then Manchester United in the Community Shield on Sunday, and there continues to be scrutiny of Tal Ben Haim and Florent Malouda, two of his purchases. In Glasgow, there was some muttering among the travelling faithful about the presence of these two arrivals.

In the way of these games, players came and went in bus-loads at half-time, but with Didier Drogba and Andriy Shevchenko starting up front, and Joe Cole, Frank Lampard, Steve Sidwell and Malouda in midfield, Mourinho evidently viewed the occasion as a means of honing his best XI. Ricardo Carvalho, Ashley Cole and Claudio Pizarro were among the second-half substitutes but, Mourinho became frustrated as his side struggled to penetrate.

Those members of the press who had looked forward to being presented with the cultured surliness of the Chelsea manager afterwards were to be disappointed. Mourinho, having warmly shaken Walter Smith’s hand and applied his trademark arm around a shoulder, left the postmatch explanations to his assistant, Steve Clarke.

“We deliberately choose not to take easy pre-season friendlies at this club,” Clarke said. “If we wanted we could take games which gave us 4-0 or 5-0 wins but that’s not the way we do it. At this stage in the season it is all about analysing our play, assessing our options, and seeing what we can take from it. The result is disappointing, but at this stage we have other priorities. We changed our system a few times to look at that.

“This was also a good workout for John Terry, and another chance for Claudio Pizarro to play with the team. Our best player on the park today was probably Steve Sidwell. I think everyone saw how good an acquisition he is going to be for us.”

It was a peculiar match, given the way Chelsea had so much of the possession, yet came off second best in terms of goals. Also, while Clarke talked up Rangers as “tough opponents”, it is doubtful whether most of the Chelsea fans at Ibrox had heard of the Glasgow side’s scorers: one a lampooned Slovak, the other a Spanish import who would not even count among his country’s top 75 players.

With Sidwell, Malouda, Shaun Wright-Phillips and Pizarro all having squandered chances, Rangers found themselves unlikely winners in the closing minutes. First, Novo fired a fine drive inside Hilário’s right post after 84 minutes and then Sebo’s deflected effort looped into the net two minutes later.

It left Mourinho quietly smouldering.