Andrey Santos says the disappointment of missing out on the Carabao Cup final can be harnessed by the Blues when we travel to Wolverhampton Wanderers in the Premier League on Saturday.
It was never going to be a simple task for Chelsea to reach Wembley after the first leg of our semi-final tie against Arsenal ended in a 3-2 defeat. But head coach Liam Rosenior developed a clear plan for the second leg at the Emirates.
We successfully contained Arsenal for an hour before Cole Palmer and Estevao Willian were introduced from the substitutes’ bench. That was the moment the Blues looked to turn up the pressure and level the tie.
Unfortunately, the Gunners were too resolute in their defending and in stoppage time, with Chelsea committing players forward, they struck on the counter-attack through Kai Havertz to secure their place in the final.
‘We’re not happy with the result,’ our Brazilian midfielder reflected after the game in north London. We came here to reach the final, so we’re disappointed.
‘It’s frustrating because we didn’t create as much as we hoped, but we have to move forward and keep going because we have a big game on Saturday, Wolves away. So it is hard, but we have to respond.’
The 21-year-old has featured in six of our previous eight matches following Rosenior’s appointment last month. Given that the two worked successfully together last season at Strasbourg, that is no great surprise.
That has made the adaptation process easier for Andrey Santos, but he says his Chelsea team-mates are all working hard to adapt to the Blues’ head coach’s methods.
Andrey said: ‘I know the manager already, I worked with him at Strasbourg. Of course, there is time to adapt but you can see with our other results that everyone is working hard for the coach and we have to keep going.’