Chelsea 3-2 Shakthar
Roberto Di Matteo reacts:
In terms of the timing of the winning goal I would agree there was an element of luck,’ admitted Di Matteo, ‘but playing against a good team I thought we deserved to win because we did a lot of good things and we put them under pressure, especially in the first half. That is how we scored the first two goals, we applied pressure, so I think we deserved to win ultimately.
‘It was always going to be difficult because Shakhtar have a lot of good individuals who play as a team very well, and they have shown it in all the games they have played. The fact we went ahead twice and didn’t quite hold on to the lead made it more difficult and we need to work on this, being able to see out games.’
On the Blues’ defending for the goals scored by Willian, who previously had just one goal to his name this season.
‘You look at the goals and we had a lot of players back so it is not like we were outnumbered. The first goal we had two players slipping and the second we had plenty of players in defence to deal with the cut back, but we need to work on our defensive organisation and that has to improve over time.’
On the decision to name John Terry as a substitute.
‘JT is a fantastic player and has many qualities and I am very happy that he is back available, but considering in the last four weeks he has had one competitive game I thought we needed players that were 100 per cent match fit for a game like this. But we will certainly need him.
‘We probably lacked a little experience in terms of we didn’t have Frank Lampard or Ashley Cole available and JT didn’t play, so there was a lot of Champions League experience that wasn’t on the pitch. In normal circumstances you would like them to be with you but the players who played did tremendously given the enormous pressure we were under in this game. We knew we needed to win and it was difficult given the quality Shakhtar have and the way they play.’
On the position in the group and the remaining games away to Juventus then home to Nordsjaelland.
‘We have a good chance to qualify because the last game will be crucial as well to Shakhtar and Juventus when they play each other.
‘We need to win the last game for sure and we need some points in Turin as well.’
Shakhtar boss Mircea Lucescu was left to regret what he saw as goal-costing errors from his goalkeeper and team overall.
‘Over the course of the match we had a lot of opportunities to score and I think we matched Chelsea,’ claimed the Romanian. ‘They had some possibilities due to the quality of individual players but we had much better organisation.
‘But in the last minutes we went to attack to score the third goal and we left some spaces behind, and there was a big mistake for their goal because we knew Chelsea had tall players and we give them the possibility to have a corner, and it is painful.’
