Wolfsburg surprised by success at Chelsea

Wolfsburg returned to the scene of their 2013 UEFA Women's Champions League triumph on Wednesday night and produced a 3-0 win that shocked even their long-standing coach Ralf Kellermann.

While for Chelsea the round of 32 first leg was their European debut at the men's stadium, Wolfsburg beat Lyon here three years ago 1-0. Denied a third title on penalties by the French club a year ago, Wolfsburg started their new campaign with a Zsanett Jakabfi hat-trick in front of 3,783 fans, a competition record crowd in England other than the 2011 Craven Cottage and 2013 Stamford Bridge finals.

Both coaches plus Chelsea winger Gemma Davison, who came on at half-time with her side 2-0, gave their thoughts on the game, with the second leg next Wednesday. Listen to what they said in the audio player above.

Ralf Kellermann, Wolfsburg coach
I didn't expect we would win by this much. We came here to show respect to Chelsea. There were even some good chances we missed but everything worked very well, including tactically, and we are very pleased with the result.

From what I've seen [previously] of Chelsea they would definitely be around the top of the Bundesliga and I don't think we saw their true face today.

If you look back to the 2013 final, Zsanett did very well. She is now back at the top level that we are used to having her, especially considering all the injuries she has had. She scored all three goals from midfield and this shows that we are dangerous from everywhere, not just the strikers.

Emma Hayes, Chelsea manager
I'm as much to blame for that performance as [the players] are. The reality is we give the players the game plan and up until the goal we were mostly executing it. But it was a cheap goal, we have got a lot of international players on the pitch, for us to concede two goals in the first half with relative ease is what has disappointed me the most. The players are hurt, they are not happy with that, but I can’t hide my disappointment.

It's not that no one cares, the players are hurt, they are struggling and lacking in a little bit of confidence. Maybe going to Wolfsburg 3-0 down is fantastic for us because there's no pressure, and in the big games this year we have fluffed our lines.

Wolfsburg have a playing budget three times as big as ours, and they've been doing it a little bit longer. We've had professionals a year and a half and clearly the world 'professional' is new to the [English] game. Wolfsburg know how to come and do a job and that is what we are learning.

I can't help it, I feel like I've let [the fans] down tonight. I'll say the right things about great numbers being here and it's exciting, and it really, is, but I'm a competitor and it absolutely kills me that we haven't produced something that is more worthy of the opportunity. We are better than that.

Gemma Davison, Chelsea winger
We'll have to go and review it and then prep for next week. When I came on I really felt the crowd, I thrive on that and I really appreciate everyone coming here tonight.

We produced in the second half, when we pressed them high they were scared a little bit so we have to take that second half and build on it. We know we can hurt them in areas, I know I did, so we want to take that to the second leg.

Playing teams like this is where you learn a lot. We know we've got a good team and we need to get up to this level. We'll be going back to the drawing board, we've got the world class players to do it. We've just got to find a way.