Graham Potter recorded his first Champions League win as Chelsea boss with a comprehensive 3-0 victory over AC Milan and made sure to praise the attitude and mentality of his players.
Goals from Wesley Fofana, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang and Reece James sealed a crucial result against the Italian champions and put the Blues back in contention to advance from the group after losing to Dinamo Zagreb in their opening fixture of the competition.
For obvious reasons, particularly Chelsea’s inconsistency over the past weeks, Potter was understandably pleased with his team’s display and praised different aspects of a comprehensive performance.
Potter hails Chelsea’s attitude and gives update on Fofana’s injury
Speaking on Chelsea’s result against formidable opposition, Potter said: “It was a good night for us,”
“We needed to play well and have a good attitude, and I thought the attitude and application of the players was fantastic. It was a really important win for us.”
“We started off a little nervous for the first five minutes, which is probably just a result of us wanting to do so well so much, but then you saw the appetite of the players. We got control of it and offered a threat, pushing before the goal, and it’s always important to get the first goal obviously.”
“We had to start a bit on the back foot in the second half and suffered a bit, which is good, and to score the second goal gave us a bit of a breather. Overall, I can’t complain with a clean sheet, three goals and great personality from the players, so it was really good.”
An injury to Wesley Fofana, who grabbed his first goal for Chelsea, was the only gloomy story for Chelsea on Wednesday night and the young defender appeared to leave the stadium in crutches.
Giving an update on the players’ situation, Potter added: “We’ll have to scan it tomorrow and see how he is but there’s nothing to report at the moment. That’s the one disappointing thing about the evening so we have our fingers crossed. We’re concerned but I don’t want to speculate on it now.”
“These things happen. He’s a young guy and a strong guy but we’ll support him.”
What the result means for Chelsea
Victory for Chelsea over AC Milan sees them move to second place in Group E, but only level on points with the Italian giants in third place. It throws the group rather open, when you consider that first-place Salzburg (five points) are only two points ahead of bottom placed Dinamo Zagreb with three points. Realistically, any side can still top the group and any side can still also miss out as well.
Chelsea will now be hoping to secure a similar result when they take on Milan in the return leg at San Siro next week but first they must seal a result against Wolves in the Premier League on Saturday.
