Porto 2-0

Independent:

Relief for Jose Mourinho as Blues progress in Champions League
Chelsea 2 Porto 0: Willian adds to early own goal
Jack Pitt-Brooke Stamford Bridge 

If this was Jose Mourinho’s last stand, the final whimpers of an ending empire, it certainly did not feel like it.  Chelsea, for the first time this season, played like the champions of England. They produced a performance stamped with the old Mourinho qualities of defensive control and attacking incision, better than almost anything else they have shown in 2015.

This was a Champions League standard of performance from Chelsea, not allowing a handy Porto side to lay a finger on them. It felt absurd to watch this and to know that Chelsea were staring the Europa League in the face beforehand. Even more absurd is the fact that a team who can do this are 14th in the league table during Christmas party season, but there we are.

Whether Chelsea’s beleaguered players were playing for their own futures, for their manager, or simply to stay in the Champions League is beside the point. What was evidently clear here in the drizzle was that Chelsea are a good team who, for their own combination of reasons, have been playing very badly. This was a performance of unambiguous quality. Porto barely registered.

There were moments last night when the last four months, ever since the Community Shield and that feisty opening day draw with Swansea City, looked like a bad dream. It must have felt to fans and players that they had been transported back 12 months, to the autumn of 2014 when Chelsea ripped through the Premier League on their way to winning it.
Diego Costa and Eden Hazard, two players who had completely lost their way this season, both produced easily their best performances of the season. This is just one match out of four months, but if those two can retain these levels over Christmas and beyond, then the prospects for Chelsea’s season, and for Jose Mourinho, are suddenly slightly brighter.

Costa was back in the team here, after two games on the bench, in which he was forced to watch Hazard play up front with the imagination and fizz that had drifted out of his game. This was not Costa at his best, as his touch is still on its slow way back. But it was a better Costa, a Costa who has learned from what Mourinho has told him, a Costa who was willing and able to make those clever runs for the good of the team.
When Chelsea started last season so strongly it was in part because of Costa’s dangerous leading of the line, testing out opposition defences. Last night he tried to do that again, helping make the important first goal after just 12 minutes. Hazard flicked a clever pass in behind and Costa burst onto it, skipping past the soft challenge of Ivan Marcano.

Through on goal, Costa shot straight at Iker Casillas. The ball rebounded and hit Marcano, running back towards goal, in the chest. Maicon dashed back and tried to clear it, but was too late. Chelsea had ricocheted their way into the lead.
Costa continued to cause Porto problems with his runs, even if one of those runs ended on Casillas’ foot, for a booking that was unnecessary even by Costa’s casual standards. Chelsea were still rediscovering their football, and ended the first half with two genuinely earned chances. Oscar played a precise one-two with Willian, only for his shot to be deflected wide off Miguel Layun, before Costa dragged a shot wide from a tight angle.

If there was any worry for Chelsea it was that a 1-0 home lead no longer means that the game is in the bag. The painful defeats here to Liverpool and Southampton have taught them that. What Chelsea needed, at the start of the second half, was a quick second goal. It soon came, as Eden Hazard seized control of proceedings.
Mourinho has spent much of this season trying to cajole Hazard back to his best form, moving him for the left, to number 10, to number 9 and back again. Here he was back out wide, but at the centre of every Chelsea attack, running the game and creating chances with his sharp passing. Hazard begun the second half by making a chance for Willian, which was saved, but Chelsea did not have to wait much longer to double their lead.

Azpilicueta knocked a ball down the left hand side, where Costa had pulled out. He nodded the ball back to Hazard, in dangerous space in the middle. Hazard passed it through to Willian on his right, who left Bruno Martins Indi behind and smacked the ball into the near bottom corner of the net.
Chelsea were two goals up and three away from the Europa League, which is how the scoreline stayed. But that cushion gave them a confidence they have lacked all season, and they started, led by Hazard, to attack with more vigour and imagination than they have shown for some time. He made one chance for Ramires, who could not escape his marker. He made another for a tiring Costa who overran the ball. But the movement and combination play had returned to Mourinho’s side.
The only real difference between this team and the electric Chelsea of last autumn was the absence of Cesc Fabregas. He has been the most consistent underperformer this season and was replaced by Ramires here, who provided more energy and pace in a midfield which could live with Porto very comfortably.

Porto’s only threat came before the opening goal, when Yacine Brahimi, who tortured Chelsea in Portugal in September, twice drifted past Azpilicueta and made Courtois make one good near post save. But after that the only defending Chelsea had to do was in the final minutes. John Terry twice snuffed out Vincent Aboubakar while Courtois made one good stretching save from Tello. But by that stage Chelsea were 2-0 up and strolling into the last-16 as winners of Group G. It was difficult, as they cruised through the final stages, opening up Porto at will on the break, to remember what all the fuss was about.

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Guardian:

Chelsea overcome Porto and nerves to top group and move into last 16

Dominic Fifield

For a brief, tantalising period here, Chelsea felt restored. José Mourinho was back celebrating goals in rather matter-of-fact fashion, as if the sight of his team stamping their authority over panicked visitors in this arena was merely to be expected. Roman Abramovich was clapping his team’s victory from his box high in the West Stand, that all too familiar grin plastered across his face, while John Terry bellowed instruction and opposing defenders quailed at the sight of a rampaging Diego Costa. Branislav Ivanovic, arms plastered to his sides, was even making smart interceptions to deflect goal-bound shots wide. This was like old times.

The hope is this was actually a portent of better things to come and a much-needed reminder of these players’ underlying qualities. After a campaign scarred so regularly by trauma rather than triumph, Chelsea can at least thrill at the prospect of a Champions League knockout tie in the new year. A game they needed to win to top the standings was effectively secured early, this victory – and there have been precious few of those this year – granting a deceptively comfortable look to the final Group G table. They finished two points clear at the top and three away from a Porto team condemned to the Europa League. A glance at the standings made the fear Mourinho’s team had been flirting with in the buildup feel ludicrous.

Chelsea delighted in rare success. Perhaps it said more about the quality of the opposition that they could thrive with relative ease after being gifted an early advantage, and then that they were able to prosper on the counter-attack against a Portuguese team who had arrived in London knowing they would almost certainly have to muster a first win on English soil to progress. Theirs was a night of numbing anticlimax, a physically imposing side crammed with man-mountains – Danilo, Giannelli Imbula and Porto’s centre-halves appeared better suited to a Mourinho team from the mid-2000s – departing diminished. Everything Julen Lopetegui offered was reactive, desperate, ineffective. His team are better than this. Mourinho’s selection, with Cesc Fàbregas and Pedro omitted and Ramires adding bite and energy, eclipsed them all.

Chelsea may believe they are capable of more than the mishmash they have offered up previously in the aftermath of this win. The pressure alone surrounding the game elevated this performance up among their best this season, having been boosted by their early lead. Ramires claimed the ball smartly in midfield, with Eden Hazard clipping a precise pass to Costa, bursting through Iván Marcano’s challenge, to the edge of the penalty area. If the forward’s strength was obvious, his shot lacked conviction and was struck too close to Iker Casillas, only for the ball to fly off the goalkeeper’s right hand, on to the retreating Marcano’s left shoulder and rebound back towards the gaping net. Maicon did his best to hack it away but his clearance was from behind the line with the additional assistant referee, Baris Simsek, immediately indicating Porto had been breached.
It was the fifth own goal to benefit Chelsea this season. Only Willian, with six free-kicks, has a better tally and he would be celebrating his first from open play before the end. There was joy to be had in the fact Costa and Hazard combined in the buildup to the second goal, the striker nodding down for the Belgian, who drifted infield across the edge of the box and slipped the Brazilian free down the right. Willian had burst beyond Miguel Layún and fired away his shot long before the sliding Bruno Martins Indi could intercept, with the ball careering inside Casillas’s near post.

It was comfortable thereafter, with Chelsea drawing reassurance from the presence of Terry, Nemanja Matic and Thibaut Courtois and with Yacine Brahimi too peripheral to wound them. It actually should have been more emphatic. Therein lay a warning of sorts. Hazard scuffed a shot against the base of the post – he has gone 26 Chelsea games without a goal – while Costa, three times liberated beyond Porto’s creaking back-line, was undermined by indecision and a heavy touch. He may have bullied and infuriated his opponents with his general demeanour, with one particularly unnecessary trip on Casillas earning him a booking, but there remains a lack of composure born of shorn confidence.

“That is clear,” said Mourinho. “But what is also clear was his effort, his commitment, his great movement, which was something he didn’t have for the last couple of matches. With the first chance, of course, last season he would have scored immediately. On the second chance his instinct was to look to the linesman, which wasted a second. And then his touch wasn’t the best. So, yes, clearly there’s a lack of confidence but his attitude was very good and his movement was much better. The goals are coming.” He is a work in progress.

Matic will be serving a one-match suspension when Mourinho’s side confront one of Roma, Ghent, PSV Eindhoven, Paris Saint-Germain, Benfica or Juventus. “Everybody will want to play us,” said the manager. “None of the teams who finished second wants to play Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atlético, Bayern … I think every team finishing second will want to get us or Zenit St Petersburg.” The hope is, by February, a confrontation with the Premier League champions will feel far more daunting.

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Telegraph:

Chelsea 2 Porto 0:  Willian to the rescue again for Jose Mourinho

By Matt Law

Champions League, Stamford Bridge, Under pressure manager sees his side progress to knockout round thanks to own goal and in-form Brazilian

For one night, at least, Jose Mourinho was king again, Chelsea were top of the table and Roman Abramovich was smiling. This was like the good old days of May.
What has been a dismal season for Chelsea was finally lifted with qualification to the knockout stage of the Champions League as Group G winners thanks to Mourinho’s two saviours, Willian and own goals.

Willian took his personal tally to seven against Porto and the Brazilian is still followed by own goals in the Chelsea scoring charts, as Ivan Marcano put through his own net.
But Stamford Bridge did not care who or even which team were scoring Chelsea’s goals against Porto, just as long as the Blues did not suffer yet another humiliation.
Even the Porto fans, who are still grateful for their 2004 Champions League success, seemed pleased for Chelsea manager Mourinho as their team were relegated to the Europa League.

The travelling supporters joined the Chelsea fans with a loud chorus of ‘Jose Mourinho’ as the final whistle approached before a rendition of ‘Stand up for the special one’ echoed around all four sides of the ground.
Whether the euphoric mood lasts after the next Premier League game against Leicester City remains to be seen, but, just as it did in 2012, the Champions League is providing Chelsea with some much-needed respite.
With Chelsea just two points above the Premier League relegation zone, Mourinho admits his team are underdogs in the Champions League but still believes they could follow the example of his Porto and Inter Milan teams, and lift the trophy.

“To win the Champions League, it’s obvious that a team who are struggling as much as we are is not a candidate to win,” said Mourinho. “You have the best teams in Europe. But, when we won with Porto in 2004, we were not candidates. When we won at Inter in 2010, we were not candidates. When we were candidates, we lost two semi-finals with Real Madrid and two with Chelsea. So let's see. You never know.”

Chelsea can draw Roma, Gent, Paris Saint-Germain, PSV Eindhoven, Benfica or Juventus in the last-16 and Mourinho admits Chelsea will be the draw everybody wants.
“I think every second a team wants to play us,” said Mourinho. “They don't want to play Barcelona, Real Madrid, Atletico, Bayern. I think every team finishing second will want to get us or Zenit.”
Even the officials were on Mourinho’s side on Wednesday night, as additional assistant referee Baris Simsek awarded Marcano’s 12th-minute own-goal in what was a rare case of an official behind the goal making a decision.

Eden Hazard played Diego Costa through on goal, but the 27-year-old looked less than convincing with just Iker Casillas to beat.
Fortunately for Costa, however, his predictable effort was kicked against Marcano by Casillas and the ball bounced back towards goal. Maicon desperately tried to clear the ball off the line, but Simsek, correctly ruled it had crossed the line.
Costa certainly returned to the starting line-up with renewed vigour, but the striker’s confidence in front of goal remains worryingly low.

He saw Casillias produce a good save to stop his angled drive, but Costa produced his best Fernando Torres impression to squander two wonderful opportunities in the second half.
First, Costa failed to find the pace to sprint away from Danilo and, instead of shooting, he rather pathetically attempted to win a penalty. Then, the Spain international succeeded only in shinning the ball straight to Casillas as he attempted to bring it under control.
Mourinho clapped encouragingly each time Costa blundered, but it was another frustrating game for the man who has only scored seven times since January.

“Lack of confidence, yes clearly,” said Mourinho. “But his attitude was very good and his movement was much better. The goals are coming.”
While Costa may have lost his goal touch, he still retains his sense of devilment and was booked for leaving a boot in on Casillas during the first half. Nemanja Matic also earned a yellow card that rules him out of the first leg of Chelsea’s last-16 match.
Having fallen behind and needing to score at least twice, Porto had to try to go on the front foot in the second half but it was Chelsea who were back out of the traps the quickest, as Willian tested the palms of Casillas with a drilled shot.
The Spaniard, though, could do nothing to stop Willian extending Chelsea’s advantage in the 52nd minute and effectively securing his team’s path into the knockout stage.

Costa worked the ball to Hazard, who played in Willian and the Brazilian smashed a shot into the back of the net to score his first goal of the season from open play, with all of his previous six coming from free-kicks.
Porto manager Julen Lopetegui responded to Willian’s strike by sending on Vincent Aboubakar and Ruben Neves, but the change appeared too late with the visitors now requiring three goals to go through.
Porto rallied, with Yacine Brahimi seeing a curling shot headed away from goal by Branislav Ivanovic, but Chelsea should really have added to their advantage before the final whistle as Costa failed to cap what was otherwise a good night.