Chelsea defender Thiago Silva made his name in Europe at AC Milan, and tonight he returns to face them in Italy.
He’s excited – how could you not be – but he had a start warning for his teammates that they were in for a much tougher challenge than the one they had at Stamford Bridge last week. There, a combination of injuries and poor performances from the Italians made things relatively easy for Chelsea.
This time, we face a stronger side in front of a serious home support. We have to be ready, and Silva has to clear away his nostalgia and focus on the game.
“It is a good feeling to be back here after 12 years. It is a moment that touches me a lot, but I will try to stay calm and concentrate on the match. It will be a different match than the first leg,” he said in quotes picked up by MilanNews.
“It will be a very difficult match, thank goodness we won in London, so even a draw at San Siro would not be bad. We will try to win anyway. I know that playing at San Siro is not easy, but the goal is to score points.”
We don’t like hearing that a draw is on the cards – even if he’s right that it would be a decent result.
We need to play to win, we can’t get complacent just because we’ve got one win on the board. Graham Potter knows that qualifying from the group is the bare minimum he can afford, and a win tonight will go a long way towards that.
