Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech has been quite vocal over the goings on at Stamford Bridge recently and has told his team mates to forget about Sunday’s FA Cup quarter final against Manchester United and concentrate on tonight’s task against Steaua Bucharest in the Europa League.
The Czech player of the year said that the Blues must take things step by step and warned against complacency.
He told the club’s official webstite:
“We cannot be thinking of Manchester when we have an important Europa League match ahead.
“We need to take it step by step because each game is important for us. The manager has to think into the future but us players, we always concentrate on the one upcoming game.
“It is surely not going to be easy. Steaua are a tough opposition and they have plenty of experience with playing in the European cups.
“In the previous round they demonstrated their strength by knocking out Ajax.
“They had not done well in the first leg in Holland but did superbly in the home match. They erased a two-goal deficit and progressed on penalties.
“That shows they are very strong at home and we need to be extremely wary.”
Considering we limped through the last round against sub-standard opposition would make Cech right as we cannot afford to think anything is a forgone conclusion if we are serious about winning this competition. Cech is also right about putting the United game on the back burner, but how serious are we about the Europa League and should we use the competition to give the likes of Ake a chance?
It would be a good competition to win for us and every fan wants to see his side win every game they go into, of course, but I’m not sure anyone would be delighted if we won this but finished outside the top-four for example. It hasn’t been a good season for Chelsea so far and we’re not exactly comfortable in our position so we must not spread ourselves too thinly and I’d like us to takes risks in the Europa League if we’re going to do it anywhere.
