Manchester United's Nemanja Vidic: We still respect Chelsea's Fernando Torres despite lack of goals

Manchester United's Nemanja Vidic: We still respect Chelsea's Fernando Torres despite lack of goals

Serbian calls on his team to tighten up at the back and urges United's forward to find the game's first goal if they are to progress to Champions League semi-final

Manchester United captain Nemanja Vidic has refused to write off misfiring nemesis Fernando Torres ahead of their Champions League encounter with Chelsea on Wednesday.

The Spaniard, and his fellow strikers, have found it hard to find the back of the net since January but Vidic has spoken of the respect he has for the Blues front men.

"We have respect, obviously, for their attacking players," said the defender.

"It doesn't matter if they didn't score a goal. They will try to score and they will give their best.

"This is two games and, at the end of the day, it's most important who will go through and not who will score the goals."

United’s defence was given a stern test by West Ham on Saturday and Vidic admitted that if there are to beat the Blues they will need to tighten things up at the back, but the second half comeback to win the game 4-2 will give them a huge boost going into Wednesday’s game.

"The defending part, we need to improve a bit more and we'll be all right," he admitted.

"Of course, it's much better when you win the game and go to the next Champions League game.

“But I don't think our concentration [for Chelsea] will be different.”

And despite the recent history on Chelsea’s side the Serbian defender feels this game will be totally different to the recent league encounters.

"In the last few games, they had good results,” he continued.

"But this is the Champions League and we have to score a goal - this is the name of the game for us.

"We're not going to relax, we know we're playing against a good side, especially at home.

"They're an experienced team, they have experienced players."