The matchday programme for today’s meeting with Sheffield United can be ordered online and as a taster of what can be found in the pages, we reproduce below Thomas Tuchel’s column. Among many other features, the programme also has a Jorginho exclusive on the different partners he has in the Chelsea midfield, but here is what is our head coach writes going into this FA Cup game…
We come back to Stamford Bridge for another important game today after an unbelievable team effort on Wednesday night. It was a great performance, with everyone feeling the importance of the game and the result – we were super hungry to go through and I think you could see that on the pitch.Atletico Madrid pressed us high in the first half, but this meant we had the possibility to hurt them on the counter-attack and we took one of those opportunities to give ourselves a two-goal lead before half-time. After that, we kept our concentration and we did what we had to do for the rest of the game – then Emerson came on to score a really good goal to finish the tie.It was also another clean sheet, which everyone worked hard for, and we come into this weekend with a good feeling behind us after reaching the last eight of the Champions League.
Afterwards, we had to immediately refocus to prepare for this FA Cup quarter-final game against Sheffield United and it is difficult to know what to expect. They had a big loss last weekend, against Leicester, so let’s see how they approach this game.I was genuinely sad to see Chris Wilder leave the club because he was very friendly to us when we met at their ground and gave us a very warm welcome. It’s always sad when things don’t work out, and he was so long at the club, and such a success story.Honestly I will not be too influenced by their performance at Leicester, and actually maybe the last league results are not so relevant today because it is a different competition. They will try to put it aside and find a new self-confidence for the FA Cup.It’s the same for us. After the draw at Leeds last weekend, everybody was a bit disappointed, which is maybe a good sign. But, although we spoke about it after the game, we also saw that this week was an opportunity to put our Premier League goals aside for two matches. We had the Atletico game in the Champions League in midweek, and we have the FA Cup today.Our goals were absolutely clear – we wanted to be in the quarter-finals of the Champions League and now we want to reach Wembley. It was not easy on Wednesday and it will not be easy today, but these are the goals that we set for ourselves.I am pretty sure that we will have some changes and give minutes to some guys who have not played too much for us, to show our trust in them and to let them prove themselves. But the goal is clear: we want to win this game and go through to the semi-finals of the FA Cup.