On Wednesday evening Chelsea take on Maribor at Ljudski vrt. If Chelsea win and Sporting Lisbon fail to claim the 3 full points against Schalke, Chelsea will qualify for the knockout stages.
The only players to miss training today were Loic Remy and John Obi Mikel, therefore they haven’t travelled with the squad.
Diego Costa took part in another full training session today as he looks to regain full fitness ahead of tomorrow’s match. Ramires is another player who is almost at full fitness now.
Apart from that there were no other injury concerns for Chelsea.
Ahead of tomorrow’s game Jose Mourinho and Branislav Ivanovic both spoke to the press today.
[wp_ad_camp_1]
Mourinho had this to say:
The 6-0 win is a fake situation because it was the only match, along with the game against Everton, where one chance was one goal.
“Normally, to score goals, we need a lot of chances and many times we’ve paid the price. Against Maribor everything went in our direction, the first opportunity we had was a goal, the second was a goal and so on.
‘I know they are a good team, I watched them against Sporting and Schalke mainly, but I also watched a couple of matches from the Slovenian league. They are well-organised and have good players who try to play offensive football.’
‘I like the concept of going as a big club with big players to a city where normally they don’t come.
‘Slovenian teams are not normally in the Champions League and we have a responsibility, not just to play for us, but to play well for the people and show the quality we have.’
Mourinho also wanted to rectify his comments made on the atmosphere this past weekend.
‘Everybody knows how much I love the club, how much I want the club to improve and how much I want to be part of the club for the future.
‘When everybody knows that, even a moment of criticism has to be analysed with different eyes, with the eyes of someone who knows why I came back to Chelsea, why I’m here with my heart and why I want to stay for a long time.
‘I’m just somebody that loves football a lot, I love my job and I’m lucky to do my job at a club I like so much and have such a connection. Maybe that makes me lead the club with a different kind of emotion.
‘This is not just a job for me, it’s more than that because it’s Chelsea. Maybe I go a bit too far but I see myself in the stands watching Chelsea and I want to play, I want to help. If I’m not a player I cannot play, if I’m not the coach I can’t make decisions to move the game in our direction. If I’m just a fan, what can I do to help? That’s just my view.’
As part of the Champions League press conference, one player also joins the manager to speak to the press and Ivanovic joined Mourinho today.
Ivanovic:
It will 100 per cent definitely be a different game.
‘In the first game we scored at the right moment and the second goal as well, so we had a great game in the beginning and we controlled that, but Maribor had a really good part of the game when they played well.
‘In the head of all Maribor players is the game tomorrow because when they saw the Champions League group and they saw Chelsea, all of them wanted to play in this stadium against us, and the motivation will be massive.
‘The game we won in London 6-0 will make it harder tomorrow, because the approach from Maribor will be completely different.
‘I have played here with my national team and the atmosphere will be very hot,’ he added. ‘All the supporters, all the city and all the country live for that.
