Scolari seeks more from Chelsea

Luiz Felipe Scolari may have enjoyed a resounding 4-0 victory against FC Girondins de Bordeaux in his first match in the UEFA Champions League, but the Chelsea FC manager believes there is still room for improvement from his side. His opposite number Laurent Blanc, meanwhile, felt his team "were too timid at times", but following AS Roma's shock defeat at home to CFR 1907 Cluj in the night's other Group A match, the former France international insisted there is "still a long way to go".

Luiz Felipe Scolari, Chelsea manager
We have made a very good start. We won 4-0 and we have three points. You never know what can happen in football – look at the other match in our group, with Cluj beating Roma. The result is the most important thing, of course, but I was disappointed with the way we played for much of the second half – from the tenth minute to the 30th minute [of the second half] especially, when we made mistakes in possession and were unable to control the game as I would have wanted. Perhaps a stronger opponent would have made us pay for that lack of control, but although Bordeaux had more of the ball than us [during that period] they did not really create chances to score. And then we finished the game strongly with two goals at the end, which was very pleasing. I shall give all the players a day off tomorrow as I am happy with them. Then we can start to think about the next game against Manchester United [FC], but not now.

Laurent Blanc, Bordeaux coach
Four-nil is a clear outcome. Chelsea were too good for us tonight, the result shows that. We knew they were a good team and they confirmed that. I think we were too timid at times and I was disappointed that on some occasions the team did not carry out what we had practised in training. We lacked aggression and often came out second best in individual battles. If you analyse the match, it's clear we were up against a top-quality team and we struggled to impose ourselves. We showed them too much respect and were unable to match them. The scoreline says it all. When you fight so hard to reach the Champions League, as we did last season, you have to give a better account of yourselves, particularly in terms of effort, than we did tonight.

We improved in the second half, but it came too late. Against a quality side you have to try to keep the score at 0-0 for as long as possible, but we fell behind early. Both goals in the first half were down to our mistakes. We should not be letting Joe Cole win the ball in the air at the near post with three big defenders around him. We now have to move forward and learn the lessons of this game. We have to consider the strength of the opposition, of course, but it is clear that we have a long way to go to be at the top level. Chelsea have shown us how much work there is for us to do. We don't know whether tonight's other result in the group will be a help or hindrance in the long run. If we play like tonight, we will struggle, but let's see how the table looks after all the games have been played. There is still a long way to go.