Chelsea are determined to impress against Tottenham in next month’s Carabao Cup semi-final, assistant boss Gianfranco Zola says.
Eden Hazard came off the substitutes’ bench to score six minutes from time in Wednesday night’s 1-0 quarter-final win over Bournemouth at Stamford Bridge, setting up the two-legged tie with Spurs.
Tottenham beat Chelsea 3-1 at Wembley last month, inflicting the first competitive defeat of Maurizio Sarri’s reign after an 18-match unbeaten start.
“Everyone is very excited to be facing them again,” Zola said.
“We are happy because, some time ago, they gave us a good footballing lesson. We’re looking forward to challenging them again.
“There are a lot of proud players in our team. Of course they will want to play this game and show we were not the ones playing in that game. Too many players under-played.
“Some of them were hurt. They will be looking forward to it.”
The behaviour of a minority of Blues fans has come under scrutiny following alleged anti-Semitic chanting which the club wishes to eradicate.
Uefa is investigating after the alleged use of a chant by Chelsea supporters featuring discriminatory language, anti-Semitic in nature, aimed at Tottenham fans.
Zola added: “I have no doubts that they will respond to it in a proper way. We have fantastic supporters and I’m sure they’ll be supporting respectfully and in the Chelsea way.”
Hazard was not risked from the start due to a foot injury, but came on and scored the decisive goal, his 10th of the season.
“The difference was the changes we made. When Pedro and Eden came on, they gave us an extra gear,” Zola added.
“Eden is the type of player who can make a big difference when he comes on, even for 20 minutes.”
This post was last modified on 21/12/2018