Graham Potter said Chelsea have plenty of reasons to be optimistic for the second leg of their Champions League last-16 tie against Borussia Dortmund after being the "dominant" team in Germany despite a 1-0 defeat on Wednesday.
Chelsea, who arrived in Dortmund in poor form with one win in their previous eight matches, controlled large parts of the game at Signal Iduna Park and led on several key attacking stats, producing eight shots on target to Dortmund's two – 21 to 14 shots overall – and having 10 corners to the hosts' five.
But the only stat that matters was once again missing for Chelsea as Karim Adeyemi scored a brilliant solo goal on the counter attack to hand Dortmund a slender lead ahead of the return fixture at Stamford Bridge. "Overall, we were pleased with the performance for big parts of the game," Chelsea manager Potter said. "It is complicated away from home in the Champions League, in a hostile environment against a team that's in a good moment." Joao Felix, on loan from Atletico Madrid, was once again excellent for the Blues and had two good chances to score, missing the target with his first effort and striking the post with his second.
For all their eye-catching attacking movement, it took until nearly an hour into the match before Chelsea had a shot on target, but they then had a further seven, Reece James forcing a couple of good saves from Dortmund goalkeeper Gregor Kobel, and Kalidou Koulibaly having a deflected shot cleared off the line.