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While City have a full week to prepare for the potential decider in what appears to be a two-horse race for the Premier League title, Mourinho has confirmed that Nemanja Matic, Branislav Ivanovic, Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas and Eden Hazard will all return. Goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois and John Terry, the captain, will also start against Liverpool at Stamford Bridge on Tuesday night.

Its a knockout game, live or die, against a very good team, which was not the case [on Saturday], he said. So maybe the fact that we play against a good team, maybe that will push us on to a different level of concentration and motivation that we couldnt reach on Saturday.

I have to analyse the game and see which players deserve more to play but obviously I rest some of them with the intention of playing against Liverpool. So it is easy to understand that Matic, Ivanovic, Costa, Fabregas, Hazard are going to play in the next game.

Mourinho, though, is still adamant that he did not regret his selections against Bradford, who he inadvertently referred to as Barnsley. Is there any player in Barnsley, err Bradford, that can play for Chelsea? With all the respect? No. A Chelsea player that should play for them and be the top player for them, yes. So the selection was good. The players should obviously win this game easily.

The Chelsea manager said that defeat by Bradford would stay in our history forever but he was still adamant that it could influence his players positively on Tuesday. At the end of May we dont go to Wembley for the FA Cup final. The FA Cup is finished for us. We dont go even to play the FA Cup semi-final. So to go there should mean a lot to everyone. We are one victory from the final.

Mourinho said that he would be making no special plans for Raheem Sterling even after his goal in the first leg. He scored a fantastic goal but I didnt see too much more than that. I think Chelsea played defensively very well. In that action he was fantastic and we made a couple of mistakes in the way we approached that situation.

I was frustrated after the first leg because Liverpool gave a lot of space. They play with three defenders, the full-backs are wide. We could hurt them much more than we did there. I was frustrated because normally our midfield is full of quality. Very good quality after losing the ball and we lost so many passes. In that game I saw enough space to score more goals.

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Chelsea v Liverpool: Jose Mourinho recalls big guns despite looming clash with Manchester City