SCHURRLE: PATIENCE PAYS

Andre Schurrle was delighted to help the side through to the last four of the Champions League on Tuesday night, and added his name to those expressing their happiness for his follow goalscorer Demba Ba.

The German began the game on the bench but was called into action early due to Eden Hazard’s injury, and struck the first goal of the night just 15 minutes after his introduction with an instinctive right-footed finish from 12 yards.

Despite Schurrle’s intervention, we were still destined for elimination until another substitute, Ba, slid home a second goal three minutes from time to book our place in the last four.

‘We needed to have patience, we hit the bar twice but we never gave up, that’s what this team is about,’ the 23-year-old said as he looked back on a special night at the Bridge.

‘When you see on the clock there is five minutes to go and you need to score, you don’t give up. You put everything you have in the game and everyone is very happy for Demba, he’s had a difficult time but he totally deserves it.’

Trailing 3-1 from the first leg, the Blues knew it would be a difficult evening, but Jose Mourinho had instilled confidence in a side that is used to scoring goals on home soil.

‘Almost every time we played at Stamford Bridge we scored two goals, we only needed two goals, and that’s what we did,’ Schurrle said.

‘We knew we had to play like we always do, with a little bit more risk maybe because we needed to score, but we also had to be patient because we can score at any time. We wanted to score in the first half to give us more options, but after that it didn’t matter if we scored in the 46th or 90th minute, and in the end we did it and we deserved it because we played very well, we had the ball all the time and dominated the game from the beginning.’

The win leaves us awaiting Friday morning’s semi-final draw, but Schurrle is adamant it does not matter who we face in the last four.

‘We can win against every team, so that’s what we will try no matter who we get,’ he said.

The draw takes place in Switzerland on Friday morning, 11am UK time.

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