Borussia Dortmund head coach Edin Terzic appeared to aim a dig at Chelsea’s spending after they knocked his team out of the UEFA Champions League.
Goals from Raheem Sterling and Havertz saw Chelsea win 2-1 on aggregate on Tuesday as the Premier League side booked their spot in the quarter-finals of the competition.
The result means that Dortmund have lost their first game of 2023 and Terzic feels his team did more than enough to compete with the Blues, who have spent over £600m on players since the summer.
When asked if his plans were thrown up in the air after he was forced to substitute Julian Brandt after just five minutes in the second-leg tie, Terzic told BT Sport: ‘[We lost] three players who have been in form in recent weeks.
‘But that’s part of the game. We adapted well. We have enough quality in the team and that’s the good thing.
‘If you see before the season, if you compare both teams… But I think if you look at these two games, this is what we want.
‘We don’t want to compete with Chelsea in the transfer market. We want to compete with them on a matchday and I think we did it twice.’
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Terzic played down the penalty incident which saw Havertz miss – and then score – after the attacker was forced to retake it due to encroachment.
Chelsea were handed the initial spot kick for a handball from Marius Wolf after a lengthy VAR check which saw referee Halil Umut Meler go over to the monitor to check the decision.
‘I’m responsible for the performance of our team,’ Terzic added. ‘I don’t want to talk about the referee. I thought it was a tight call and a tight decision.
‘I think the first 10 minutes you can feel the power not just from Chelsea but from the stadium. ‘After that, we came back into the game but they managed to score and we didn’t.
‘We had a clear chance through Bellingham and only had a couple of counter-attacks to defend. We didn’t create much later and that’s the problem.’
