Well, that was … something.  Weird night.  For all the talk of Chelsea not being good enough on the day in a general sense, it was still two set piece goals that undid our 2014-15 Champions League campaign.  And that certainly is not good enough under any circumstance.

Here are some post-match thoughts from the Chelsea manager.

“They deserved to win.  When a team cannot defend two corners and concedes two goals from a corner a team doesn’t deserve to win.”

“We couldn’t cope with the pressure of playing with one player more and playing at home. For me it was a surprise.”

“For them it was easy with 10 men – defensive organisation, two lines of four, Cavani in attack, waiting for the right moment at a corner or from a mistake. Mentally they had nothing to lose. I know that feeling having played with 10 men in the Champions League. They were experienced, they were good. We deserved to be punished.”

While I loathe the idea of deserving things in a sports setting, there is a saying that goes, “you deserve what you accept,” and that I feel is fairly apt in this case.  We simply did not put up the proper fight tonight.  The hunger, the desire seemed to be lacking.  Mourinho shouted his head off on the sideline, but the 11 Chelsea statues were unmoved.  Here was an almighty scrap that lasted a little over 120 minutes, and we did not emerge as the winners, conceding twice in the final five minutes of, first, regulation, then extra time.

“The players felt the responsibility of the game too much especially when the opposition had 10 men. Clearly some of the players couldn’t cope with that. The individual performances were not good enough.”

“There was no accumulation of matches; there was a normal period of training using the same methodology that has pushed us to be top of the league since day one. Apart from Matic who trained only one day, every player was training normally. It’s obviously not a physical situation, that’s not the reason.”

“When you concede two goals from two corners it’s even more evidence of what I’m saying. It’s about lack of concentration, it’s about lack of responsibility to cope with the markers and the space you have to control.”

Read More: weaintgotnohistory