Things looking up for Schürrle after Steaua success

It was a case of mission accomplished for Chelsea FC, who were determined to make amends for their matchday one defeat against FC Basel 1893, and did so with an emphatic 4-0 victory at FC Steaua Bucureşti.

André Schürrle said the ease of victory in the Romanian capital made it even harder to explain what went wrong at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago, but he preferred to turn his attention to the next two matches against FC Schalke 04. For Steaua it is now seven goals conceded in two games without reply but midfielder Nicolae Stanciu insists it is too early to start thinking about aiming for third place in Group E.

André Schürrle, Chelsea forward
We are very satisfied. We had to win because we played badly at home against Basel. From the first minute everybody could feel, and could see, that we were extremely motivated and we deserved our 4-0 win. It is hard to explain the two results. Normally at Stamford Bridge we are a power. We did not have so much luck against Basel and it was not our best day. That is why we had to win today and that is the approach we took into the game.

In view of our quality we want to qualify, we want to win the group, and we will do everything to achieve this. There are four games left to be played and a lot can happen but we can see that the two matches against Schalke will be crucial. They are a very good team and I have a lot of friends there so I am looking forward to them.

Petr Čech, Chelsea goalkeeper
It was a very good result and we played a very good game. We were efficient. We had complete control of the game in the first half and most of the second half. We were a little bit under pressure after losing the first game at home but this was a good result for us.

Every individual performance was at a really top level and as a team we were organised. Tactically there was no problem – we did exactly what we wanted to do. We created lots of chances and we converted them – that was the important part of the performance. The main thing [when colliding with the post] was to get to the chip and push it over. I just needed a little bit of time to get my breath back and after that I was OK.

Nicolae Stanciu, Steaua midfielder
There is not much to say. I do not think this was the real Steaua. Of course we have lost two matches with big goal differences but in both matches we created several goal opportunities and what we failed to do was convert them.

I do not know if it is right to talk about a psychological problem that we have to overcome. We have two matches now against Basel and we have to play better football and score goals. I do not want to say if we have another target now [to finish third] but it is obvious that both matches against Basel are extremely important for us.