Chelsea can’t afford any let-ups, admits Courtois

Thibaut Courtois knows Chelsea can’t afford any more dropped points if they are to keep their hopes of making the top four alive.

Courtois expressed frustration at more dropped points as Chelsea’s bid for European football faded further in Wednesday night’s goalless draw at Watford.

The Blues are 13th in the Premier League, 16 points behind fourth-placed Arsenal and 11 adrift of Sunday’s opponents Manchester United, who occupy the final European qualifying position in fifth.

It seems increasingly likely that Chelsea, last season’s Premier League champions, will have to win the Champions League to qualify to play Europe’s elite next season. Paris St Germain are their last-16 opponents.

Goalkeeper Courtois has won back to back titles — the Primera Division in Spain while on loan at Atletico Madrid prior to last season’s championship win — and took little consolation from Chelsea extending their unbeaten run to 10 games since the departure of Jose Mourinho as boss.

“Being unbeaten is always important but obviously we would have preferred to win than draw,” Courtois said on chelseafc.com.

“We could have won. It’s a pity we didn’t but now we have an important game against Manchester United.

“We want to win every game and move up the table, it’s another big one.”

Chelsea might have nicked all three points had Heurelho Gomes not been equal to Diego Costa’s late header.

Courtois added: “He’s a very good goalkeeper and he proved that, the last save from Diego was terrific and he saved them the points.

“We’re not happy, we had the biggest chances and Gomes made two big saves.

“We cannot be happy with a point but it was a solid performance.”

Meanwhile, Cesar Azpilicueta believes the Blues are working well at the moment and is looking forward to Sunday’s game against Manchester United.

Louis Van Gaal’s side have scored six goals in their last two matches, but Azpilicueta feels we are heading into the game in strong shape.

“It will be a hard match,” he said. “They are a team who keep the ball and won their last match well. They are a good team with very good players.

“We have confidence to win all our matches. That’s our objective before every match. We are playing at home and we will go for the three points.

“We have three competitions to play for: the FA Cup, the Champions League and the league, where we want to finish as well as possible.”

Azpilicueta, who returned to the starting line-up having sat out Sunday’s FA Cup win at MK Dons, felt that with a little more luck, Chelsea would have taken all three points against Watford.

“It was a tough game, obviously we are a little bit disappointed because we felt we deserved more,” said the Spanish defender.

“It was a good performance from the team but at the end of the day we didn’t get the three points.

“We need to move (up the table) quickly. The whole team worked a lot and we are going in the right direction. Keeping a clean sheet is important but their keeper made some great saves, we were so close to winning the game.”