Di Matteo – Barcelona don't like playing Chelsea!

Most football pundits think that the Chelsea players may as well stay in the club rest room keeping an eye on their poker blind clock rather than bother to turn up and get destroyed by Barcelona, but after nine wins in 12 games since Roberto Di Matteo took over, the Blues have regained the belief in their ability.

Di Matteo knows that Chelsea will have to at their best in both legs of this Champions League semi-final. ‘We need two perfect games from our point of view,’ the Italian coach said. ‘In the last six weeks we’ve been performing well and that gives us the belief that we can give two perfect games.

‘It’s a big challenge for any manager, but for the players as well, it’s a chance to test themselves against the best in the world. The spirit in the group is very high, very good, we couldn’t have had a better game than Sunday coming into it.

‘We’ve improved gradually, every win has given us more belief and confidence. We have a fantastic squad with some quality players and we play the best way we can to get the best out of these players.

‘They don’t like to play against us, results in the past have shown that. The way we play is difficult for them to play against. We respect each other, but there will be two teams playing against each other and we will try to cause them problems.’

‘When you play at home you want to get a positive result for the second leg,’ he concluded. ‘It will be a game where we don’t want to concede, but we also want to score a goal or two to take into the second leg.”

To be honest, Chelsea need at least a two-goal cushion to have a realistic chance back at the Nou Camp, and the way that Di Matteo has so far managed to get the best out of his team, I don’t see why they can’t do it.

One perfect game will do for tonight, then worry about the away game after that……