Chelsea must knock Atletico Madrid out of UEFA Champions League, says Cesar Azpilicueta

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Simon Johnson5 December 2017

Cesar Azpilicueta has told his Chelsea team-mates it is crucial they take their opportunity to knock Atletico Madrid out of the Champions League on Tuesday.

Atletico can reach the last 16 if they beat the Blues at Stamford Bridge and Roma fail to win at home to Qarabag.

The Spaniards have reached two finals in the past four years and beat Chelsea in the semi-final of the competition in 2014. A victory for Chelsea will ensure they go through to the knockout phase as winners of Group C but Azpilicueta says sending Atletico into the Europa League is another motivation.

He said: “We know it’s the last game for Atletico Madrid to qualify for the knockout phase and we have to do our job. Do we need to take this chance to send one of the favourites out of the competition? Yes, we do.

“We are going into the game full of confidence and we have it in our hands to finish first. It has been a hard group and Atletico are a very tough team. We know how competitive they are, even when they are in a less good period.

“They have been in two Champions League Finals in a short period of time and they won La Liga (in 2014), too. They will come here to fight to win the game. We won at Atletico (in September) and it was probably our best performance of the season. We will have to be at our highest level again to win.”

That victory at the Wanda Metropolitano Stadium was the first time that coach Antonio Conte started Eden Hazard and Alvaro Morata together.

The duo combined for the opening goal and their partnership has grown stronger since then. They now have 18 goals between them and Azpilicueta believes Hazard and Morata will be a major threat to the other teams.

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“The two of them are very good,” he added. “They complement each other and give different solutions to the team. They are creating lots of chances, it’s important to have two players playing like this and the team benefit from it.

“The knockout stage starts in February and obviously we want to have players like this in the best form to help the team progress. They are getting better together. As you play more and more, the better you know each other and it’s true they are doing a very good job.”

Hazard, in particular, is looking good, having scored eight times in his past 10 appearances. Worryingly for Chelsea’s rivals, Conte feels the Belgian still has a lot of room for improvement and Azpilicueta said: “I agree with that. Eden is still young and he has many more years in front of him in the big time.

“It’s good to see him making the difference in so many games.”

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