Win beautiful when we can, just make sure we win when we can't. Those are the instructions Felipe Scolari gives his players according to his pre-match press conference on Tuesday.
That it's a message taken on board was there for all to see a day later against Roma when a single set-piece goal separated two teams in a game low on chances and incident.
Not that it was a match without quality, not from a technical sense at least as Scolari explained as he reflected on the victory and his side's sixth clean sheet in a row.
'Another win is important because the players have more confidence. Sometimes the game is not very well but tactically the players play good and keep their positions.
'I don't think it was a beautiful game but it was a game when the people who watched it know the players played well. [Roma manager] Spalletti and me, we put the players on the pitch to fight for this game and maybe if Roma had scored the first goal, they would have won.
'It was not beautiful but we played a good game and Roma played a good game,' he re-emphasised.
The Serie A side altered slightly their normal formation but kept the basic principle of Francesco Totti as a mobile fulcrum of the attack, with a flood of midfielders moving around and ahead of him. It's a method that has an admirer in Scolari.
'Roma didn't play only to defend. They play football. Every game that I saw on video, they try to play - in midfield, at the back, in front. They don't have one striker, a number 9 who stays all the time in the box.
'They arrive with four, five, six players and it is difficult for the other team to control this situation. They have good players for this style.'
Happily it was the Chelsea captain rather than Totti who made the difference. John Terry has scored a famous late headed Champions League goal in front of the Matthew Harding End before. This new one came in a less spectacular and less decisive game than against Barcelona in March 2005 but no-one can say the latest one is not important.
'It was typical John Terry,' smiled Scolari. 'When I was the manager of Portugal and we play against England, I am afraid when Terry came into my area at corner kicks.
'Then I said to my players we need to look at this player because if he touches the ball, it is dangerous for us. Now I am here and I expect the same. He touched the ball and it made a goal.
'Now we need three more points and we have three games. When we play now in Rome, I think they play a different style than today and I think we will have more chances.'
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