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Chelsea quietly confident heading into PSG clash

By on March 7, 2016

Chelsea have been under a lot of pressure this season. First, they carried the burden of reigning Premier League champions. Then when their season rapidly began to unravel, they faced even greater expectations to get themselves out of the mess. Finally, Jose Mourinho was let go when it seemed that Chelsea simply could not win: he had lost five of his final seven league games in charge of the Blues.

Guus Hiddink’s arrival offered a fresh start with the burdens of their early-season expectations lifted, if only for a short grace period. Three months on, Hiddink has been undefeated in sixteen league and FA Cup matches and most recently, the club strung together their first run of consecutive league wins this season with victories on either side of February’s Leap Day.

Heading into their Champions League Round of 16 first-leg tie with Paris Saint-Germain three weeks ago, Chelsea were labeled, even by their own manager, as “underdogs.” Without the pressure of expectations, we saw them put their heads down and start playing again, scoring a crucial away goal and putting in a generally sturdy defensive performance in a 2-1 loss that leaves the tie delicately-poised for Wednesday’s return leg.

Still, Hiddink admitted ahead of the second leg: “We are not the favorites.”

Yet they have given themselves a chance and a boost of quiet confidence. “We have regained confidence and have quality but PSG can rest five, six or seven players,” said Hiddink, per The Guardian. “But let’s be very tough underdogs. We need to be angry in a controlled way on Wednesday. The players must be fully concentrated.”

Last year, they turned around a 3-1 deficit in the second leg of their Champions League tie against PSG, only for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to score a late equalizer and send the Parisians through on away goals. On Wednesday, the Blues will look to emulate a similar turnaround. A 1-0 win would put the through to the Quarterfinals, although they’d need to seal their place in the next round should PSG bag an away goal.

Laurent Blanc’s men had expected to win in the first leg, although it was tighter than they would have liked.

“We confirmed we are a good team but there are things we could have done better,” said PSG midfielder Marco Verratti in a fascinating, wide-ranging interview. “We could have put Chelsea in more trouble. We have to go to London and play our football, if we do anything else we’ll be in trouble.
“We need to keep possession, attack and go for an early goal. These are the games that we wait for all season. Being eliminated in the Champions League would be a bit of a disaster.”

They’re on a mission to capture the Champions League title and it’s perhaps their best shot with the generation of players they have. Zlatan Ibrahimovic is already thirty-four and Thiago Silva and David Luiz are both nearing the end of their respective primes. A loss on Wednesday would be an unmitigated disaster for the club, especially given they have had all winter to focus on Europe with the Ligue 1 title in the bag.

Chelsea will be missing John Terry, who has been making slow progress in recovering from a hamstring injury. Hiddink’s men drew Stoke City at the weekend, although they were obviously playing with one eye cast on Wednesday’s Champions League tie and their team selection reflected just that.

Nevertheless, they’ve got a good opportunity against PSG, but don’t shout about it — then the very magic of the circumstances will be gone and most likely, Chelsea will buckle under the pressure.

“We have great quality in the squad, they have as well, and games like this are 50/50,” Willian said, per Chelsea’s official website. “On Wednesday, from the beginning, we have to show them what we want. From the first minute we have to show them that. They will want to dominate possession, but we have to pressure them, press them and play our football as well.

“We are at home where we have more confidence to play and we will do that. I repeat, it will be a difficult game, but we can do it.”

Photo credit: Ben Sutherland, via Wikipedia Commons

About Alex Morgan

Alex Morgan, founder of Football Every Day, lives and breaths football from the West Coast of the United States in California. Aside from founding Football Every Day in January of 2013, Alex has also launched his own journalism career and hopes to help others do the same with FBED. He covers the San Jose Earthquakes as a beat reporter for QuakesTalk.com and his work has also been featured in the BBC's Match of the Day Magazine.