By Dominic Fifield, The Guardian /London

 
Jose Mourinho claimed Chelsea were back “among the best eight clubs in the world” after last season’s Europa League winners eased beyond Galatasaray to ensure there will be at least one English team participating in a Champions League quarter-final this season.
The Portuguese said he hopes his side will be joined on Wednesday by Manchester United, who are seeking to overturn a 2-0 deficit from the first leg against Olympiakos, but praised his players for outclassing their Turkish opposition to force passage into the next round. Mourinho has never lost a quarter-final tie in the Champions League and will await Friday’s draw for the last eight in Nyon with relish after beating Galatasaray 2-0 on the night and 3-1 on aggregate.
“We are there [in the last eight] but it’s different from last season because, then, that was the Europa League and at a different level,” he said. “To come from the Europa League to the quarter-finals of the Champions League is important for the club, important for the players.  We are a Champions League club and now we are among the best eight, the best clubs in the world, and we are there. The players deserve to be there.
“All the big teams are there. All the big candidates to win the competition are there. And we would welcome any one of them. It would be very good for our evolution as a team and very important for us to play one of the best. We wait for the draw. It doesn’t matter who. They are all welcome.”
The manager suggested he had been unaware of his own record in the last eight of Europe’s elite competition. “Why should other teams fear [Chelsea]? I’ve never lost in a quarter-final? I’ve never thought about it.”
Mourinho, who had watched from afar as the London club failed to make it out of the group stage in the Champions League despite being holders last season, is expected to be charged with misconduct by the Football Association on Wednesday and fined around 10,000 after being sent to the stands for encroaching on the pitch in Saturday’s defeat at Aston Villa. It was the second time this season that he has been dismissed from his technical area after a misdemeanour in October’s victory over Cardiff, an offence which prompted a standard 8,000 fine.
Tuesday night’s occasion was considerably more comfortable than the match at Villa Park, with Didier Drogba  granted a rapturous reception before kick-off and a fine send-off at the end on his first appearance at Stamford Bridge since leaving Chelsea in 2012  becalmed by the excellent John Terry and Gary Cahill. The veteran was presented with a silver boot to mark his eight-year spell at Chelsea but was granted only one glimpse of goal, and that came in second-half stoppage time.
“The most difficult thing was the way his team played,” said Mourinho.  “When you are a striker, if your team doesn’t produce attacking football, you feel like a lonely man. It happens to every striker in the world: if the team is not there to play behind you, you are a lone[ly] man.  
“So I think he couldn’t do much. I have to say, in my opinion, Gary and John made a fantastic performance against two very good strikers in Burat [Yilmaz] and Didier. But the fact is we controlled the game so well that you could never see Didier in dangerous positions.”