Jose Mourinho admits he heaped pressure on his Chelsea players prior to Tuesday night's Champions League meeting with Steaua Bucharest.
The Blues required a response following their opening group stage loss to FC Basel a fortnight ago and the Portuguese was delighted it came in the form of a 4-0 win away from home.
"I put a lot of pressure on the players for this game," he said.
"I keep saying I don't want to play UEFA Cup (Europa League) and I'm putting that pressure on them because we have to do everything we can to keep Chelsea playing in the Champions League, because the Champions League is our competition.
"It's a way you can grow up faster. When you play for a big club, you need to have big challenges, sometimes bigger than your real conditions to succeed.
"It's the way to accelerate the process. I'm happy because they coped very, very well and we played very good football.
"In attacking areas we were beautiful in certain moments, but I think everything started in the back.
"Petr (Cech), Iva (Branislav Ivanovic), David (Luiz) - zero mistakes all game - John (Terry), Ash (Ashley Cole).
"They gave us big stability there and from there the team could cope with the situation."
