Scoring quite early in Germany was good enough reason to make John Terry smile, and what was to follow later ensured he was very satisfied when assessing the game later.
Although any manner of victory would still have seen Chelsea qualify for the Second Round of Champions League knock out stage and take all the perks that come with finishing top of the group, the 5-0 thumping of Schalke in Germany on Tuesday left basically nothing o chance.
Terry headed Chelsea in front on 10th minute for his 10th European goal. This was his second goal of the season in Europe after earlier goal against Maribor.
“I really needed to score the goal. Maybe, I ought to have scored when we played West Brom during the weekend and I was disheartened not to have scored,” said the Chelsea skipper. He expressed delight at having added to his Champions League tally of goals.
I thought Willian’s second goal was at a class of its own- great movement all the way through and a sublime finish. Once we scored the third one, I knew the much was no longer a contest.
The Tuesday night victory in Schalke puts the West London club as joint-second highest scorers in the 2014/2015 Champions League season, and have also matched the best goal difference after conceding only two goals. Terry insisted that that is the balance is the key.
“At the moment, we are playing well as a team and are getting stronger after every game and this is very good. When we go forward we are a real threat and we remain even tighter defensively, something that is very good as we go forward in the competition. If we manage to keep the balance of both of these, then we have a fantastic chance.”
“Our forward play is very good. Whenever we have ball going forward, we are very dangerous but we can shift at any time to defend. At the moment, it is not just our back four and the goalie who have to defend but the whole team. The lads work their butts off to track back and regain the possession, and this is very important to us.”
“Tonight, we played a very tough team at their turf but the performance was very good,” Terry added. “It is very important to top the group because of the draw of the next round. That was our target at the beginning of it all. We have already attained that target with one game to spare and with the busy schedule ahead of us the manager is free to give other players a rest.
“We know that there is still a long way to go and so we are not letting ourselves get carried away. We will stick with the old cliché of taking one game at a time but we appear to be getting stronger with every game. We hope to continue our fine run of form.”
The next game for Chelsea is against Sunderland and you can buy tickets for Chelsea matches online and watch the game.
