DEFENCE MUST IMPROVE

Chelsea manager Rafa Benitez has said that the defence must improve substantially if they are to have any chance of beating Manchester City at Wembley on Sunday. Chelsea will be taking on Manchester City in the semifinals of the FA Cup. This is one of the toughest matches in the season for Chelsea.

It has just been made even more tough due to the marathon run of fixtures they have had in recent weeks. The team has played four matches in the last week alone, while they will be coming after a gruelling trip to Moscow to play against Rubin Kazan in the Europa league quarter-finals.

Even though they lost the match against Rubin Kazan 3-2, they managed to progress into the semifinals 5-4 on aggregate. Chelsea took the lead twice in the match, but they could not hold on to the lead for much longer, as they allowed the Russian team to totally dominate in the second half. Fernando Torres and Victor Moses scored the goals for Chelsea. John Terry was extremely poor at the back, as his defensive line allowed Rubin Kazan to take advantage. Chelsea would have gone out of the competition had they conceded two goals, which seemed like a real possibility at one stage in the match.

"We have to stop crosses and deal much better with them - things we couldn't do against Rubin. was happy with the first half, but we have to improve on our second-half performance. I'm disappointed because we didn't defend well in the second half. It is not just the defenders who have to improve, because it is the whole team who defends. We managed the squad and hopefully we'll have some fresh legs for Sunday too," said Benitez, who rested a number of key players against Rubin Kazan.