Graham Potter enjoyed his finest night as Chelsea manager as they overcame a first-leg deficit against Borussia Dortmund to reach the Champions League quarter-finals.
Potter was under huge pressure after a dismal run of results following Chelsea’s huge outlay in the transfer market, but he will hope the manner of this performance and the advance into the latter stages of Europe’s elite competition will deliver a measure of calm and stability to Stamford Bridge.
Chelsea fully deserved their win, although they squandered several big opportunities before Raheem Sterling made the breakthrough after 43 minutes, firing past Dortmund keeper Alexander Meyer after initially fluffing his shot.
The goal which settled the tie and overturned Dortmund’s 1-0 advantage from the first leg came in contentious fashion from the penalty spot eight minutes after the break.
Dortmund were furious when a VAR review penalised Marius Wolf for handball from Ben Chilwell’s cross and their sense of injustice heightened after Kai Havertz struck the post with his spot-kick only for a re-take to be ordered.
This time Havertz made no mistake and Chelsea were on their way into the last eight.
Sterling later said: “It was a massive performance. We had to dig deep. We took our chances. We felt as a team we could do it.
“I had a little mis-kick with the first touch but it landed perfectly and allowed us to build on that for our performance.”
