Chelsea had to come from behind twice to beat Championship promotion hopefuls Wrexham on Saturday night, surviving the narrative forces of Hollywood documentarians to advance to the quarterfinals of this year’s FA Cup. It wasn’t exactly a vintage performance from the well rotated Blues, but we did just enough to prevent disaster against non-top-flight (yet) opposition.
While head coach Liam Rosenior admitted that there certainly was an element of luck about the way things played out — such as with
offside margins or the red card for Wrexham — he was also quite happy with the character and determination shown by his players.
“[This is] why the FA Cup is what it is. I think [Wrexham] were magnificent. Magnificent in their energy, and how brave they were in the press, and how they played. Then we had to be at a high, high level. We were pushed all the way by very good team.
“You’ve got to show character as well. […] We have to find a way to not be in that position (to be behind), but what the players are showing me, no matter who’s on the pitch, is a really good spirit and a belief and a determination to win games of football, which we’re going to need for the rest of the season.”
“We needed elements of luck today because Wrexham were that good in terms of their performance. [And] in these cup ties, when there’s emotion, you can feel the emotion of the game. They’re very difficult games to play in. We won’t be the only team in the Premier League in this round to find it difficult against lower-level opposition.”
-Liam Rosenior; source: Football.London
It’s not the first time that Rosenior credits his players’ mentality in overturning deficits, though as he points out, maybe it would be even better if we didn’t find ourselves in such disadvantageous positions so frequently.
That said, we’re in the hat for the quarterfinal draw and we were able to rest several key players ahead of PSG midweek (including Enzo, Caicedo, and Palmer), so job done at the end of the day. As they say in March Madness, survive and advance.
