Brentford boss Uwe Rosler has urged his players to believe in themselves and make the most of their opportunity to upset the European champions.
Rosler’s side are massive underdogs for Sunday’s FA Cup fourth-round clash with Chelsea – Brentford’s first competitive match against the Blues for 63 years.
But the German believes his players are capable of causing the holders problems and perhaps even pulling off what would be one of the great giant-killing acts.
“This is one game, a one-off chance and an opportunity that doesn’t come very often so we have to go for it and make the most of it,” he declared.
“It will be very, very difficult but we have to believe we can win the game. There is a chance, an outside chance, and we have to make it tough for them so they must go to their limit to win it.
“Collectively we need to have an unbelievable performance, an unbelievable willingness to close them down, working hard against the ball and then when we have the ball we have to be brave and attack them.
“Physically I think my players are capable of it, technically they are capable of doing it and they are looking forward to it so much that they’ll be brave enough to do it.”
The former Manchester City striker, who scored against Chelsea as a player, has tried to keep his players’ feet on the ground in the build-up to the big derby.
But since this week’s League One game against Leyton Orient all the talk has been about the likes of Terry, Mata and Torres possibly playing at Griffin Park.
“We are trying to approach the game as normally as we can and do all the same things we did before the match with Leyton Orient last Tuesday,” Rosler explained.
“We must prepare the same way and not change our style of play. We have to adjust tactically to Chelsea but we must believe we can score.
“The main motivation is for our young players to prove themselves – to show how much they can compete against world stars, individually and collectively, and how many problems we can cause a team of this calibre.
“We have a very young squad and it is exciting to see how this team can perform on such an unusual occasion – they’re excited.
“It is a welcome opportunity for all our players, our coaching staff and the manager to impress; to make people notice Brentford and that is the main motivation to really go for it and see what we can do to them.
“We just want to go out and make our fans and our football club proud – so everyone can say Brentford has a good side, plays good football and we really had a go.”
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This post was last modified on 27/01/2013