Essien quality important for Chelsea, says Hiddink

Chelsea manager Guus Hiddink underlined Monday the importance of having Michael Essien back from injury ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League clash here against Juventus.

The west Londoners are defending a 1-0 lead from the home leg at Stamford Bridge two weeks ago and have been boosted by the return to fitness of the combative Ghana midfielder.

He played 35 minutes of Chelsea’s 2-0 FA Cup victory over Coventry on Saturday and could even start at Turin’s Stadio Olimpico.

“It’s very important for now until the end of the season to have not just numbers but quality,” said the Dutch coach of the Russian national team, who has agreed to stay at the Chelsea helm on a temporary basis until the season’s end.

“When Essien comes back we have more depth in quality in the squad. He can make a contribution like he did in the past.

“Unfortunately for him he was out for many months so it’s not easy to get straight into the rhythm of the game but he’s strong, he’s a good guy and he can be very useful to the end of the season.

“He will be in the 18 (man squad) so he’s ready to start. Let’s see what happens tomorrow (Tuesday).

“Either he can start or we can bring him in later as we did in the Coventry game. That’s going to be decided in the coming hours.”

Although Chelsea will be defending a lead in Turin, Hiddink insisted that his team would not simply sit back and try to hold onto what they already have.

“It’s always important to have what they call in England a clean sheet – that’s a nice saying,” he added.

“If you just wait in the second leg trying not to concede and not willing to concede a goal and not having any initiative then you will have lots of problems.

“Whenever we can, and its in the character of our team, we like to attack and we’ve not just come here to defend because then you are asking for problems.”

German midfielder Michael Ballack, who has twice finished as runner-up in this competition — with Bayer Leverkusen in 2002 and Chelsea last year — is expecting a tight match in Tuesday’s second leg.

However, he said little should be read into the fact that Juve seemed to finish the stronger of the two teams last time out.

“Everyone could see that it was a tight game (at Stamford Bridge). There were two good teams, it was tight and that’s what we expect tomorrow.

“It will be a tight game until the end, maybe 90 minutes, maybe more. We are prepared for this.

“We started well at Stamford Bridge and scored an early goal which was important but more important was that we didn’t concede.

“We’re happy with the result but we have another tough 90 minutes ahead of us. But you could see after the goal the strength of Juventus, they have a lot of good players in the team.

“Juventus played well and (after the goal) they had to take more risks to attack more so we had to defend more.

“That’s why we didn’t look that dominant over the whole 90 minutes but that’s normal if you are 1-0 up against a strong team.

“We can play better but I’m very positive because in the last few weeks, especially in the league games, when we conceded we reacted which you couldn’t see in the games before and that’s positive.

“I don’t know if it’s a fitness thing, in this part of the season everyone should be fit. We’re also happy to get players back so that gives us more confidence.”