Chelsea boss Jose Mourinho justified his decision to bring back goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois in place of Petr Cech for last night’s Champions League last-16 first-leg match against Paris Saint-Germain at the Parc des Princes after the Belgium shot stopper pulled off a couple of saves that could have altered the entire match.
Chelsea took the lead just before the break following a deadly header from Branislav Ivanovic, before Edinson Cavani pulled the home side level on the 57th minute.
The match finished 1-1 with Chelsea having secured that all important away goal to take with them back to Stamford Bridge for the second-leg on Wednesday March 11th.
When asked if he thought Courtois had saved them Mourinho said: “When you see the performance of our goalkeeper you have to say yes, he made two or three important saves in the game.
“We could have lost, so I think the result is a positive one. I don’t say very good because it depends on the result of the second leg.
“But it is a positive result against a very good team with fantastic technical players. It was a difficult match.
“I am happy with the result because two legs is now one leg with everything to be decided at Stamford Bridge.”
Defender Gary Cahill provided the flick on for Ivanovic to head home and when asked for his take on the game the Serbian said: “We deserved the positive result. It was a great flick from Gary Cahill and I naturally go forward to try and get the goal.
“Thibaut Courtois made amazing saves, at the moment we don’t which of our goalkeepers [are better].
“They are both fantastic and it a great feeling to have someone behind you who is doing something special.”
Even PSG’s former Chelsea star David Luiz had something to say about the Blues keeper: “We didn’t win the game tonight because of a great performance by the goalkeeper. We should have easily won.”
You can watch the Chelsea goalkeeper’s saves in the video below.
