Chelsea 0-1 QPR
Coach Benitez after game quotes:
‘We were doing well and we had confidence we could carry on doing well,’ said Benitez as he reflected on the Christmas and New Year games.
‘We changed some players but from those only Marko Marin was not playing regularly. In the last games Moses had been playing, Oscar has been playing too. You could see that some players were a little bit tired, we were not precise in possession, we were not passing the ball with the accuracy and the high tempo we were expecting, and at the end we made a mistake and we gave them this chance – too many things together that were not working for us.
‘QPR were sitting deep and they were waiting, and for them it was just to play counter attack and maybe a set piece – and that was the difference in the end.
‘We can’t carry on with the same players every game. If you are playing against a team that is bottom of the table at home then you have to trust your players and I trust them.
‘I thought they were doing well and I thought that would be fine, but maybe in odd areas we were tired. You could see we didn’t have the intensity and the pace on the pass and the movement that we were expecting.’
On not being able to rotate Fernando Torres and reports that Newcastle striker Demba Ba is about the sign for Chelsea…
‘Torres is one of two or three players who have been playing too many games in the last weeks or months. We were trying to manage the squad every game with two or three players changing and it was going well, but against QPR it was not working.
‘I don’t have any official information [about Demba Ba]. I know [Newcastle manager] Alan Pardew has been talking and there are a lot of rumours but officially he is not our player. If we can do the business I hope he could be available for the weekend.
‘I don’t want to talk about names but if you have another striker then if you need to play with two strikers then you can do that, or if you want to rest a striker you can do it. We are a little bit short.’
On Petr Cech’s groin injury and John Terry’s recovery…
‘The doctors said Cech will be out for two or three weeks. We are quite optimistic.
‘John can do the warm up in training with the team soon and then we will see how he progresses, but I can’t give any date. He has a bone oedema, some bruising, so you can’t say how long it will take.’
