Hiddink lauds Blues

Chelsea boss Guus Hiddink hailed his side's stunning Champions League quarter-final victory at Liverpool but admitted it was an "unexpected result".

The Blues stormed to a 3-1 victory at Anfield which all but assures them of a semi-final against Barcelona, who beat Bayern Munich 4-0 in the first leg of their tie.

Hiddink said: "The reality is that when you have to play at Liverpool you know it will be a tough job, that has been proved by many other teams who have played at Anfield. I admit it was an unexpected result, but we are very happy with the win and it was well deserved."

He added: "We started very sloppily. The jobs we were doing in defence were not as good as they could have been.

"We let them score far too easily, but I can only compliment my team for their recovery from that set-back. Straight afterwards we could have equalised on two occasions.

"But we reacted well, we scored with a very good set-piece and from then on the confidence flooded through our team."

Serbian defender Branislav Ivanovic scored with headers from two set-pieces after Fernando Torres had put Liverpool ahead early on.

Didier Drogba then struck a third to give Liverpool a mountain to climb next week at Stamford Bridge.

Hiddink added: "Once we had got the equaliser we did not sit back and be content with the draw. We felt we could score more and that is what we did.

"We pinpointed areas in our opponents' side where we could hurt them. The team could smell that and they took advantage. We talked about that situation again at the break and made sure we continued in the same way."