As the Blues made it a club record 17 Premier League games without defeat, the Blues’ assistant manager said the team have ignored the recent negative media coverage and just got on with their jobs.
“Our focus is winning football matches, nothing else – that’s our motivation,” said Platt. “We had a football match to win and we needed three points and we had to fight hard to turn this around.
“As for Edin Dzeko, he came on against West Brom and scored two goals but we can only pick eleven players and there’s only so much we can do in that respect.
“We have a lot of players who could probably walk into any Premier League team - and Edin is one of them - but that’s why we have to rotate the squad around.
“We haven’t tagged him ‘super-sub’ that’s what other people have done and there’s nothing we can do about that. He’s a valued member of our squad as I’ve said many times before and will continue to say.”
Platt admitted that the Blues seemed to have hit a brick wall at one point and reverted to playing a few rushed balls forward early after the break, but the panic didn’t last long.
“We came out in the second half and there was a period when we looked a little desperate when there was no need because there was plenty of time to get back in the game, but it didn’t last long,” he said.
“Should we have had two penalties? The first one could have gone either way but the players’ reaction probably told you what they thought of it. The second one on Zabaleta was more obstruction than anything else but these things, as we’ve seen before, can go for or against you.”
Platt also said the return of David Silva was a timely boost, adding: “We didn’t expect David to get through a full 90 minutes but he did and it’s good that he’s got that amount of match time under his belt. It’s great to have him back and he showed his quality with that terrific through ball for Edin to score near the end.”
