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DESAILLY: BLUES HAVE THE ADVANTAGE

/noticias.info/ There are few players better versed in Champions League achievement than former Chelsea captain Marcel Desailly, having played in three consecutive finals, winning two, and been part of the Blues first campaign in the competition. He has told chelseafc.com how he rates our chances next week.

The France legend first won the European Cup in 1993 with Marseille, the debut season for the newly-branded Champions League, and repeated the feat with AC Milan's famous 4-0 hammering of Barcelona a year later, becoming the first player to win consecutive titles with different clubs. In 1995 he was again at the final hurdle but this time lost to Ajax.

It was at the end of Desailly's first season at Stamford Bridge that Chelsea qualified for the first time and he played 16 times as we made the quarter-finals the following year, and eight games on the way to the semi-final in 2004.

Now at the sixth attempt, the club has made the Final and Desailly believes the league win over Manchester United at the end of April will give us an advantage in Moscow.

Despite warning of Manchester United's quality on the ball, he is certain pressure will be on the north-west side after their 2-1 defeat at Stamford Bridge.

'Psychologically we have something on top of them because we beat them at our ground,' he said.

'Even though [Cristiano] Ronaldo was not there, [Carlos] Tevez was not there and they had some injury at the start of the game to [Nemanja] Vidic, psychologically Manchester United will say, oh we have lost a game against them and we will have to be careful.

'When you are careful, you don't express yourself. You don't give 100 per cent, you may only give 90 per cent. Then, if Chelsea play well, we can win.

'But as a specialist of football I will tell you that it is going to be very hard,' he cautions, 'because the creativity of Manchester is higher than our own creativity, especially with the likes of Ronaldo.

'But it is football so we don't know really,' he added.

The former Blue also feels reaching the final stage of the competition gives a true portrayal of Chelsea's recent accomplishments.

'We feel as though we have achieved something extra from the past years. We are in the Final, finally. The image that Chelsea had in respect to what we had achieved was not enough.

'Now that we have the potential of winning the Champions League, it is something to close the gap between the image and the achievements.

'Also, even if we don't win, next year we know we went one step further and can work on it again.'


Bookmakers Paddy Power go against Desailly's view, listing Chelsea as slight underdogs to win the match at 15/8, with Man United 6/4 and the draw 2/1. notas_de_prensa_archivo