Enzo Maresca says Chelsea merited our aggregate victory over Copenhagen and tactical analysis done in the first half of both legs proved pivotal to our success.

The Blues won 1-0 in the second leg of this last-16 tie to book a meeting with Legia Warsaw in the quarter-finals. Both games with Copenhagen were closely contested, but it was after the interval in the Danish capital and again at Stamford Bridge tonight we showed our best work.

Maresca brought on Marc Cucurella and Cole Palmer for the second period and a tactical adjustment made a big difference to our attacking intent against opposition happy to play with 11 men behind the ball. Our head coach explained how that strategy paid off and ensured our name is one of the final eight remaining in this competition.

‘The first and second legs were quite similar,’ started Maresca. ‘The first leg in Denmark we struggled, second half we were much better. The reason why is because we planned both games that way.

‘The first game there, we tried to analyse the first half and then push a little bit in the second half in case we needed it. Because we won there, we prepared the game exactly the same way tonight. First half we analysed and saw what we needed to improve.

‘We changed the structure,’ continued Maresca.

‘We changed Josh Acheampong not because he was not doing well – he was doing very good the first time he was doing a different job – but because we needed to change the structure. You need patience.

‘We were attacking with five players and we needed to attack with six. The second half was much better and we deserved it over two legs.’