Chelsea head into Tuesday night’s Champions League match against Paris Saint-Germain with renewed confidence in their scoring abilities after putting five past Newcastle United on Saturday, the defender Gary Cahill has said.
Last season’s Premier League champions have mounted an abysmal defence of their title so far this season, but turned in arguably their best attacking performance of the campaign against Steve McClaren’s relegation-threatened side.
Diego Costa, Pedro, Willian and Bertrand Traoré got the goals as the interim manager, Guus Hiddink, watched his side warm up for the midweek European tie against PSG – who knocked Chelsea out of the competition last season – in style.
“We want to go as far as we can in the Champions League and the FA Cup and this is a very important week for the football club,” said Cahill, who may line up alongside Branislav Ivanovic against PSG due to injuries to John Terry and Kurt Zouma. “We got off to a great start this weekend and we have arguably the biggest games of the season coming up for us now, so we go into the week with the confidence from this game and knowing how important it is going to be.”
Cahill, making his first league start of 2016, played in Chelsea’s away goals victory over PSG in the quarter-finals of the Champions League in 2014. “It’s teed up nicely for a third meeting.” he said. “This game always has pressure on it. We were top of the league last year but there is still massive pressure on these games.
“You just get a feel of how big the game is. This season in the league has not gone to plan. We’ve got opportunities in the Champions League and FA Cup and we want to go as far as we can.”
Cahill also praised the intensity shown by his team-mates against Newcastle. “We chased back, we harassed, we won the ball back numerous times very quickly after we lost it,” he said. “That was pleasing but the flair players were on fire and we played really well. We didn’t get everything right because we conceded late on, but most things we got right.”
