A relieved Graham Potter hailed a “special night” after his Chelsea side reached the Champions League quarter-finals with a 2-0 win against Borussia Dortmund, bringing up successive victories during a crucial period in his tenure.
Potter has been under huge pressure to turn around Chelsea’s dismal form, although the club have continued to stand by him. The last 16 second leg, into which they took a single-goal deficit, felt pivotal and they delivered convincingly through Raheem Sterling and a twice-taken Kai Havertz penalty. While Kepa Arrizabalaga was required to repel the Bundesliga title chasers’ best efforts, the outcome was deserved.
“A fantastic atmosphere, a fantastic evening, the players were tremendous, the supporters were tremendous,” Potter said. “They had to be against a team that was doing so well. I think over the two games we deserved to go through, it was a special night.”
Todd Boehly, the Chelsea owner, was seen congratulating Potter in the players’ tunnel after full time. Potter joked “I’m still here” when asked about the conversation and said he had never seen the occasion as make or break for his future.
“I didn’t really think about it in that way,” he said. “There was always going to be those kinds of questions and noise. My job is to prepare the team as best we could and support them. They’ve been suffering, nobody has enjoyed the run we’ve had, that’s why today was important.”
Potter, who could not bring himself to watch Havertz’s retaken spot-kick after the forward had hit the post with his first effort, praised the character Chelsea showed in backing up their Premier League win against Leeds on Saturday.
“We’ve had a tough period,” he said. “We had to respond against Leeds, we played a good game against Dortmund away but lost: nobody wants to hear you played well, had chances and lost. Then we had a poor first half against Southampton. Everyone has to suffer, the players have to stick together and find a way through. I think they’ve done that in an incredible way.”
Jude Bellingham and his teammates were irate at the decision to penalise Borussia Dortmund players for encroachment after Havertz’s initial miss. “The fact they had a retake is a joke,” Bellingham said.
“For every penalty with such a slow run-up there is going to be encroachment by people running into the box by a yard or so, but that’s the game. They’ve made the decision and we’ve had to live with it.”
The Dortmund manager, Edin Terzic, was measured in his assessment. “We were told if the penalty had been scored it would have been retaken as well and I think that is probably correct,” he said. Ben Chilwell had been among those straying into the box.
“These are the tiny moments that can lead to who progresses. We still had enough time to come back, and you see what willpower we had in the last minutes, but in the end it wasn’t enough.”
