Kalou delighted with ´important´ away goal

Salomon Kalou said Chelsea must continue to work hard in the second leg of their Champions League quarter-final against Benfica.

The English Premier League side will take a 1-0 advantage into the second leg at home following their victory at the Estadio da Luz on Tuesday, in which Kalou scored the winning goal.

But the Ivorian urged his side to remain focused as the tie heads back to Stamford Bridge next month.

“It’s a good result, the away goal is very important,” Kalou told Sky Sports.

“It was a good game, everyone worked hard and when you do that as a team it makes it easier to win.

“Everyone worked hard today. We deserved to win the game and I wasn’t worried about the late chances. We are ahead by one goal and we have to get ready for the next game now.”

Kalou has found his first-team opportunities limited this season, but returned to the starting line-up due to Chelsea’s busy schedule of late.

“You want to play every game but the manager makes the decisions and you have to respect that,” Kalou said.

“He gave me my chance to play and prove myself on the pitch and I’m happy to play and give everything I can.”

Despite only scoring one goal, Chelsea goalkeeper Petr Cech said it had been a perfect performance from his side in Portugal.

“We can say that it was a perfect game for us in terms of result and performance, we kept a clean sheet and we were patient all game waiting for our chances to come and in the end we scored from a very good counter attack,” Cech said.

“It was a pity that Juan (Mata) didn’t get a second when he went round the keeper but the angle was too tight for him to score and he hit the post.

“We can be really satisfied though because in terms of the game plan we did really well. We didn’t let them play in the first half and in the second half we waited patiently and the chance came.”