The club will be in London on Wednesday night when they face Chelsea in the first group game of this season’s Champions League. However, Jokanovic, who played for the Blues between 2000-02, aims to add to Chelsea’s troubles when his team visit Stamford Bridge.
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Jose Mourinho’s embattled side start their Champions League Group G campaign in dire need of a victory after a traumatising period that has left their Premier League title defence in tatters.
One of Mourinho’s most pressing concerns is the fact that four of his “big” players have all failed to produce their best form at the same time. Ivanovic and team-mate Nemanja Matic have received the backing of Maccabi Tel Aviv manager and fellow Serb Slavisa Jokanovic, who spent two years as a midfielder at Chelsea.
The Blues have lost three of their opening five Premier League matches, the same number of defeats they accumulated in the entire 2014/15 season, and now sit down in 17th place in the table.
The 27-year-old scored the only goal for his side, but was still unable to help his team get out of their recent decline in performance.
Matic told Chelsea’s website: “It’s good we have another game in a couple of days against Maccabi”. He continued: “Chelsea are not used to being on runs like we are at the moment but this is the reality”. There are lots of games to go, we can not feel sorry for ourselves or points fingers. Real Madrid and Paris Saint-Germain are donating US.1 million, and Champions League clubs pledging €1 from each ticket sold on the first home game, of which Maccabi is one.
“We need one big win to come back to our way”, Ivanovic said.
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“I am happy that in this moment the players don’t have too much time to think about what is happening and a different competition is welcome when we are not behind having less points than the opponents, we are on zero like Maccabi, Porto and Dynamo Kiev”. We will get it out of our system, kick on and get stronger and stronger as the season goes on. But we can not look past Wednesday as we want to start Wednesday on a good note.
