Matic to take control for Chelsea against PSG

Chelsea (1) v PSG (1) Stamford Bridge, Wednesday, 7.45pm

Nemanja Matic slipped out to training at Cobham almost unnoticed on the eve of his return, a lone figure between gaggles of team-mates all clad in fluorescent yellow.

There was no limp, confirmation that the ankle damaged while celebrating the League Cup success on the pitch at Wembley, an unwanted twist born of wearing shin-pads but no strapping, is no longer a hindrance even if his manager has spent the last few days pulling the player’s leg.

"I told him that, while he's been away, we'd won a final without him and beaten West Ham at their ground, so we'd done well," Jose Mourinho said.

“But that was a bit of a joke. It is good to have him back because he is so important to the balance of our team.”

The Serb will be restored after domestic suspension against Paris Saint-Germain on Wednesday night for the return leg of the club's Champions League knockout tie. Chelsea will feel stronger for having him back.

Matic is the shield on whom this team rely, neither a ferocious tackler nor an outstanding distributor but an imposing presence nevertheless, both in terms of physique and the manner in which he reads the game around him. He offers Cesc Fabregas the opportunity to dictate the team's tempo at his side, or fills in cleverly while Branislav Ivanovic marauds up the right flank.

Kurt Zouma, a young centre-half of huge potential, had deputised admirably against Spurs and West Ham, but this side need Matic to feel comfortable. The 26-year-old had been cup-tied a year ago when Chelsea overcame PSG in the quarter-finals en route to the last four. That tie had been anxious deep into its frantic latter stages. Mourinho will hope Matic's presence ensures it is less nail-biting this time round.

Matic, albeit unwittingly, has already played a part in changing this club's outlook in terms of transfer policy. Bought as a youngster from Kosice for £1.5m, his sale had been sanctioned to Benfica as part of the deal that brought David Luiz - a visitor to Stamford Bridge with PSG tonight - from the Estadio da Luz a little over four years ago. There he had flourished to the extent that Mourinho, midway through last season, convinced Chelsea's board they should spend £22m to bring him back to English football.

That massive loss was deemed palatable given the progress Matic had made in absentia but Chelsea will not be making that mistake again. These days when promising youngsters are sold on, as is largely the case across Europe’s elite, there is an insistence that a buy-back clause is inserted into the deal.

“I brought not just my experience as a coach but also at business level,” Mourinho said. “These days, it is good for the ‘father’ club to be protected, to retain control of the situation. You can loan a player, even sell a player, and you have ways of being in control of his future. In the future, Chelsea will keep control. We will feel a lot more comfortable with that protection.

“Back then this club had gone through many managers in a few years. That made it difficult for the club to have a distinct philosophy on the table. For one manager, Matic would be the right profile of player. For another one, he might say: ‘You can let Matic go because I don’t like him.’ It is much easier for a board if there is a philosophy on the table. If I was here, a left-footed player - 1.95m , a midfielder - would never, never, never leave. But, at the same time, I think Chelsea were brave bringing Matic back.

“If, in this world, you want to do the best for your club, you don’t worry and just try and protect yourself from possible criticisms. You simply do what you think is best. We wanted a midfielder. We had on the table three or four, but the best one was a (former) Chelsea player. A player Chelsea had sold. But the club was brave enough to say: ‘If we are sure this is the right one, sure he’s the best one, then we’re sure he will be a success here.’ Now, our team has been developed with Matic in that position. Everybody feels comfortable with him there. Zouma did amazingly well for us in those two games, but Matic is Matic.”

Chelsea were at their most commanding in the first leg when the Serb was dominating midfield, with David Luiz a pale imitation in the opposing ranks. When the visitors tired after the interval, a number of key players labouring with injury, that grip was loosened and parity restored. A score draw had felt like a minor triumph, even with their reliance upon Thibaut Courtois’ excellence late on, given PSG boast the quality to punish all-comers these days. Tonight Chelsea will seek to inflict their own wounds to claim the tie, as they had last year to win 2-0 and overturn a 3-1 deficit from Paris.

Theirs has been a free weekend to prepare. Eden Hazard is fit and in form. Diego Costa, too, is back to his battering-ram best even if he has not been credited with a goal since mid-January. The Brazil-born forward's last reward in this competition had been for Atletico Madrid at Stamford Bridge last April. "But I think he is back to his best," said Mourinho, who had always suspected Costa would be blunted by his own three-game domestic ban for stamping. "I liked very much his game against Tottenham, and again his game against West Ham. I think now he has match intensity again."

Laurent Blanc went further, drooling over "a boy who loves the contact, the challenges and the duels of the English game".

“He thrives on that,” said the PSG manager. “And provoking opposition players is something he needs. So it’s important we do not get caught up in it. He always tries to provoke a reaction: I watched the cup final and, from the first minute, that was his idea.”

Thiago Silva and David Luiz, most likely restored at centre-half with Marquinhos moved to right-back, will be ready to nullify that considerable threat.

The Parisians arrive shorn only of Lucas Moura of their first-choice selection where, a year ago, they had been denied the hamstrung Zlatan Ibrahimovic in the second leg. This year they can lean on the Swede's experience.

“Whether it is Zouma or (Gary) Cahill, neither will be happy to face Zlatan,” Blanc said. “He’s a player who loves the big occasion and can score at any time against any opponent. Knocking a team like Chelsea out would certainly change the perception of PSG in France and across Europe. But it’s all too easy to talk about doing that. We have to stand up and be counted.”

Guardian Service