London, Apr 07: Chelsea thrilled at 2-1 victory over Arsenal to reach Champions League semifinal against Monaco. Chelsea manager Claudio Ranieri was "delirious" at his team's 2-1 defeat of Arsenal on Tuesday (April 6) and subsequent progression to the Champions League semi-final against Monaco. Chelsea stormed into the semi-finals for the first time with a dramatic late winner for a remarkable 3-2 aggregate success. Second-half goals by Frank Lampard and Wayne Bridge, the winner coming three minutes from time, cancelled out Jose Antonio Reyes's stoppage time goal at the end of the first half for Arsenal and gave Chelsea one of the greatest victories in their history.
Asked at a news conference about his exuberant reaction to the winner, Ranieri said: "Delirious, yes. Thirty seconds of delirious. I wanted to go with my players."


Ranieri and the team have been criticised recently and there have been persistent rumours of his imminent dismissal, but the Italian manager was confident about the future.


"I think this good victory can change something. Now we must believe in ourselves more -- more than before. But we must continue to work hard...I don't vindicate nothing. It's a big family, Chelsea."


Asked if he had received other job offers, Ranieri declined to answer. "You know I am very focussed on the matches," he said.


Chelsea has been assembled at huge cost by Russian billionaire Roman Abramovich and Tuesday's victory ended a run of 17 matches in which they had failed to beat their London rivals.


At the same time they sent Arsenal -- who as recently as Saturday morning were chasing a treble of Champions League, English league and FA Cup -- into despair.


As for the future, Ranieri said: "Everything is possible but, you know, for me it's a gamble. Every match of Champions League is a gamble. I want to continue in the (English) league; the league tells me how much we improved from last season. That is very important for me. The Champions League is a bonus. Of course if you know me very well, I want to 'kill' the opponent every time. But it's a gamble, this is a gamble."


Arsenal were knocked out of the FA Cup by Manchester United in the semi-finals on Saturday and after failing yet again to reach the last four of the Champions League now only have the English title to aim for.


Manager Arsene Wenger told the news conference: "I am confident that we will bounce back. The most important thing is to bounce back in Europe and try again next season. No, it was very tight tonight and I feel that when you are on such a long unbeaten run as we are, when you lose the first game you know by experience that we are in trouble for the next one if things don't go really well for you because it is a big blow when you had such a long unbroken run. It's difficult to explain but it is like that."


Speaking of the differences between Chelsea and Arsenal on the night, Wenger said: "Well you know Chelsea is just on the way up when we are on the way down a little bit and we crossed each other and I would think maybe of the last eight of the teams at the moment you wouldn't have wanted to play (them), even if we know we can beat them, but they are just I think in good form at the moment and their confidence is high and we lost a little bit the freshness, belief and that made it more difficult for us."


Bureau Report