Kai Havertz has labelled his Chelsea side a “tournament team” ahead of tonight’s game against Borussia Dortmund.
The Blues are playing away at Dortmund on Wednesday in the first leg of a Champions League last-16 tie.
For Graham Potter’s side, they’re 10th in the Premier League table and it looks like their season is pretty much riding on the European campaign.
In contrast, Dortmund find themselves in incredible form in 2023 and are now just three points adrift of Bundesliga leaders Bayern Munich.
Havertz, who famously scored a winning goal for Chelsea in a Champions League final, has been speaking before the clash with Dortmund.
The 23-year-old forward has made an interesting comment that the Blues are very much suited to tournament football.
“Of course, our goal still remains reaching the top four, but I think everybody knows that we’re not satisfied and that Chelsea’s expectations before the season were different,” Havertz said, as quoted by the club’s official website.
“We’re here to win titles and that goes for every year. A season like this isn’t easy for us at all. We’ll now focus on the Champions League because we know we’re a ‘tournament team’ and that we’re able to achieve great things this season there.”
Yes, Chelsea were dumped out of both domestic cup competitions this season at the first possible hurdle. However, they were desperately unlucky to draw Manchester City on both occasions.
The Blues had a fantastic track record under Thomas Tuchel of reaching cup finals, albeit they did lose both the FA Cup and Carabao Cup on penalties to Liverpool last season.
Chelsea’s two successes of winning the Champions League have come in years they were outsiders to win the tournament.
Hopefully, Graham Potter can be the latest head coach to write his name into the club’s history books.
It’s obviously a good thing to become a team that can go deep into competitions and compete for silverware across the board, but the amount of money that’s gone into this Chelsea squad means they need to be much better in the Premier League.
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