Reece James admitted to being surprised by Chelsea’s achievements this season.
Thomas Tuchel’s side beat FC Porto on Tuesday to reach the Champions League semi-finals.
After a rough start to the season under Frank Lampard, Chelsea are not only in the Premier League top four but are also strong contenders in Europe.
“The season started off a bit strange and if you’d said we would have been here at the start of the season, then we probably wouldn’t have believed you,” James said, via the Mirror.
“But it just shows with hard work, if everyone gets their head down and we work as a team and come together, then it shows what’s possible.
“As we’ve progressed in the Champions League, obviously the games have got harder and it’s higher stakes. I’ve never been in this position before, like a lot of the other young lads, and we’re learning a lot on the way.
“You can’t go into games with any fear. You can acknowledge a good team, but you can’t go in worrying.
“We’re a very good team as well and we have many strengths and we play to our strengths as well, and I think that’s shown over recent weeks. I just hope we can continue our good form and keep improving as a team.
“Going into every game, we need to have our heads up and go into the games positively and we can’t fear anyone – whoever we get, we just have to take it and prepare well for that game.
“We feel very confident going into games. We work hard defensively as a team and do a lot of work in training on how we defend as a unit. We make sure we take that into games.
“Of course, when you come to the later stages of competitions, you know you are going to come up against top-class teams so we need to be ready and at our best right from the start. They are all very good teams so we will need to prepare well and be ready for both games.”
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