BENAYOUN WARNS CHELSEA

Yossi Benayoun has said that Chelsea should be focusing more on winning against Man Utd rather than winning the Champions League itself. Even in victory, Carlo Ancelotti bemoaned the fact that his players’ minds were “already at Old Trafford” though it took Yossi Benayoun, this team’s forgotten man turned potential key performer, to put the quarter-final second leg on Tuesday into proper context.

The Israeli had just returned to club action after almost seven months on the sidelines with a ruptured achilles to be plunged into a forlorn title defence and charged with revitalising Fernando Torres, with any hope of claiming silverware resting on overturning a deficit in the north-west.

“Everyone knows – the manager, the players – that we are playing to save our season,” Benayoun said. “It is our final on Tuesday. It’s most likely we will finish in the top three or four and be in the Champions League next season. That’s almost done. But the only trophy we can win is the European Cup. If we win this game it will change everything. I’m sure of that. If we beat United, we will win the trophy.”