Paris St Germain must be ruthless in front of goal when they take on 2012 winners Chelsea in a Champions League quarter-final first leg today, according to coach Laurent Blanc.
The Ligue 1 champions-elect are on an eight-game winning streak but the former France centre-back knows Chelsea, under Jose Mourinho, have the experience and defensive know-how to strangle any opposition.
“We will have to be more efficient,” said Blanc.
“We will have fewer chances and those we create we will have to convert. We know we need to be at another level.”
Blanc’s expensively-assembled squad have no equals in the domestic league, leading second-placed Monaco by 13 points with seven games left this season.
PSG also sailed through to the knockout stages of the Champions League from a group featuring Anderlecht, Porto and Olympiakos before dismissing Bayer Leverkusen in the last 16.
The key to both games against Chelsea could be Blanc’s red-hot striker Zlatan Ibrahimovic.
The Swedish international is the runaway leading scorer in Ligue 1 this term with 25 goals, 11 ahead of team-mate Edinson Cavani and Alexandre Lacazette of Lyon who share second place.
Ibrahimovic has also excelled in the Champions League, bagging 10 goals in this season’s competition.
PSG, perhaps with one eye on the Chelsea game, produced a below-par performance at Nice on Friday and needed an own goal to secure a 1-0 win.
The last time Chelsea visited the Parc des Princes in the 2004-05 group stages, for Mourinho’s first European game as the London club’s manager, they beat PSG 3-0.
Chelsea will be without Samuel Eto’o today after the striker failed to recover from injury.
The Cameroon international was replaced shortly after scoring in his side’s 6-0 win over Arsenal 11 days ago and missed Saturday’s shock 1-0 loss to Crystal Palace.
Eto’o was not included in the 19-man squad which travelled to Paris, with Fernando Torres likely to play in his absence.
Real’s ‘decima’ bid
As Real Madrid struggle to maintain their Primera Liga title bid, a greater emphasis has been placed on winning a 10th European crown.
Tonight Real Madrid face a Borussia Dortmund side who famously blocked their path last season.
As each year passes, the desire for Real to claim a 10th European Cup, or ‘decima’, has become more of an obsession and club president Florentino Perez has spent lavishly to try and make it a reality by bringing in top talent from around the world.
They last won the Champions League back in 2002 and their hopes were raised once more last season when they reached the semi-finals only for underdogs Borussia Dortmund to conjure up a stunning upset.
They face off again in their quarter-final first leg tie today with Real under pressure to enjoy some continental success after two defeats in three league games has derailed their domestic campaign after a long un-beaten run.