Former Manchester United midfielder turned pundit Roy Keane has dismissed Jose Mourinho’s comments on his side being a great team after yesterday’s tie against Paris Saint-Germain.
The blues travelled to Paris to take on Ligue 1 champions Paris Saint-Germain in the last-16 tie of the UEFA Champions League and managed to leave the capital with a draw and an away goal thanks to Thibaut Courtois who put in an inspiring performance with some brilliant saves to deny PSG a win. Jose Mourinho was impressed with his side’s performance and had told ITV, “The hard work is to build a great team and we are a great team.
“We did the hard work, which is to build a great team, now is the unpredictability of football.”
Roy Keane however had different views altogether and countered Mourinho’s statements by claiming that Chelsea will only become a great side if they win trophies, something that they haven’t done for the last two years, “I think they have the potential to be a great team. He’s clearly a great manager, but they’ve got to back it up with some trophies.
“To say they’re a great team at the moment is nonsense.”
Keane also felt that Chelsea’s defending was far for convincing as they had to rely a lot on their goalkeeper to keep the scoreline even. After taking the lead in the first half, Chelsea had to defend for the entire second half after PSG threw everything at them to score the winner. Keane said, “That wasn’t a great performance. Chelsea were very poor defensively.”
Laurent Blanc’s side will feel they were unlucky on the night as they could score only once despite having 14 shots on target compared to Chelsea’s two shots out of which they managed to score via Branislav Ivanovic’s header.
Paul Scholes too opined that it’s too early to consider Chelsea as a great team as they don’t not have anything to back that up except a couple of top three finishes in the League, “Over four or five years you have to win trophies every year. It’s a bit early to say they’re a great team,” Scholes said.
Chelsea and PSG faced off in the Champions League last year as well and the Parisians beat Chelsea 3-1 at home but were beaten 2-0 in the return leg. Mourinho’s side have produced a much better result this time in their away leg and they will be favourites to qualify for the quarterfinals.