Fuente: © Chelsea FC
http://www.chelseafc.com/

CHELSEA FC: Reaction: Diarra earns his reward

/noticias.info/ It took an 82nd minute winner from Eidur Gudjohnsen to finally overcome Division One side Huddersfield Town and put the Blues into the next round but José Mourinho defended his decision to use his squad and make nine changes from the team which beat West Ham.

“I will always pick a team I think is good enough to win and today I thought this team was good enough to win the game. I will always try to rest some players and give chances to some of the players who don’t have a lot of minutes in the Premiership,” Mourinho explained.

“It was not a bad performance from my squad players,” he continued. “In the first-half, we had enough chances to kill the game but couldn’t score more than one goal. Against Birmingham, it was the same.”

But Mourinho singled out midfielder Lassana Diarra (pictured), on his full debut, for special praise.

“He was my best player. The next game at Sunderland he will be in my 16 because we have to reward his performance. He has a big personality, quality in the pass and defended very well. He has a bit of Makelele defensively and a bit of Essien with the ball.” Praise indeed!

The Special One also lavished praise on the League One side’s dogged resistance.

“At 1-1, we could hang on and go to Huddersfield or, the real danger is, in the last minute without giving us a chance to recover, they could score a goal. In the second-half, they started having some attacking situations, their self-belief goes up and they gave us a game.”

Huddersfield Town manager, Peter Jackson certainly agreed with that.

“We gave Chelsea, one of the best sides in the world, a really tough game today. At 1-1, I really did think we would get a draw. First-half, we were on top for the first three minutes but never got a kick for the rest of the game,” he joked somewhat tongue-in-cheek. First-half, we paid Chelsea too much respect. We didn’t compete or tackle and gave the ball away far too easily,” Jackson added.

At the end of the game, José Mourinho shook hands with all the opposition team as they left the field and invited them into the Chelsea dressing room.

“They all got shirts from today’s game.”

Jackson thanked Chelsea for their excellent hospitality which fortunately didn’t extend on the pitch. notas_de_prensa_archivo