28-11-2013
Both Fernando Torres and Gary Cahill spoke
about taking Tuesday evening's game at
Basel as a lesson in the wake of defeat,
having not yet grabbed first place in our
Champions League group due to the late
goal conceded.
A win is still needed from the final match at
home to Steaua Bucharest to guarantee the
benefits of going into the knockout stage
draw as group winners, although a point
would be enough should Basel fail to win at
Schalke on the same night.
Torres, who came on late in the first half in
Switzerland for injured Samuel Eto'o ,
acknowledged a much improved display will
be needed when we host Steaua in a
fortnight's time.
'We need to learn from the defeat,' he said.
'Now we know we are in the next round
but we need to win one more game to
qualify first which will be much better.
Defeats make you think you have to improve
but we have another group game coming,
and we have another important game
coming at the weekend, and we have to play
much better.
'We know Basel from last year when we
played them in the Europa League so it is
not a surprise for us how good they are,
and they have been better than us in these
two games in the Champions League. They
have beaten Chelsea twice so they can beat
Schalke.'
For Cahill, the team's failure to safely
negotiate the final few minutes to take
something from the game must be avoided
in the future.
'Sometimes when you play like that, you go
so far in a game and it is still 0-0 and you
think okay, it has not been a great night for
us but we will go away and take the point,'
said the central defender.
'That has been the most disappointing
thing, we got to the 87 th minute and
normally we would see that out and take the
point.
'We were under a lot of pressure in the
game and I thought we defended well
overall. Basel asked a lot of questions of us
and to concede a goal like that was
disappointing.
'Basel played really well and we were below
par after what was a fantastic performance
at the weekend [against West Ham].
Obviously when you lose games you must
do better and you analyse the game and
look at what you did wrong, and I am sure
in the next couple of days we will do that.'