Silva: Chelsea in UCL harder than past year

Last year’s clash was marred by the racist attack on a Parisian by Chelsea fans on the Paris Metro.

Following the Champions League last 16 draw, Blanc was quoted on www.psg.fr as saying: “We can not wait to be there, even if we know that this is still a bit far, in February”.

During the past two seasons, Manuel Pellegrini’s team have finished as runners-up at the group stage before being drawn against Barcelona and both times being eliminated. “We have great players to play a great match against Chelsea”. And with an interim manager, no less. Then they got knocked out by Paris.

Eden Hazard is the star, but Matic is the key to everything for Chelsea.

Since 2012-13, when a petrodollar-fuelled Paris Saint-Germain returned to the top table of European football, the club have never failed to make the knockout stages of the Champions League.

Their fortunes are in stark contrast to Chelsea’s, as the Stamford Bridge outfit only have four wins, three draws against eight losses from 15 games played.

Their potential opponents include PSG, PSV Eindhoven, Benfica, Roma, Dynamo Kiev and Ghent, and whoever they face will present their finest chance to date of reaching the competition’s quarter-finals for the first time in their history, something they may find particularly satisfying given Manchester United’s presence in the Europa League. The message is clear: they’re good, but they’re not quite there. Yet.

For all of their domestic struggles, however, they have performed to a greater level in the Champions League.

Zlatan Ibrahimovic is also the league’s top scorer with 14, while Edinson Cavani is not too far behind, on ten. For the sake of the project, he needs to rediscover the form that made him Real Madrid’s man of the match in the 2014 final.