Chelsea: Cesc Fabregas hails successful season but admits Champions League mistake

Former Arsenal star Cesc Fabregas has expressed his delight over Chelsea's season but admitted the Blues "should have approached" the Champions League game against Paris Saint-Germain in a "different way".

Fabregas has helped Jose Mourinho's side win the Premier League and the League Cup in his first year at the club.

And even though the Catalan was part of Pep Guardiola's Barcelona dream team and the Spain squad that won the World Cup and two European Championships, he has claimed on a number of occasions this season that he is enjoying his football more than ever under the Portuguese boss.

The Blues had an impressive start to the campaign with a very offensive approach to their games, scoring 26 goals in the first 10 matches of the Premier League.

But they became more pragmatic during the second part of the season, with some pundits accusing Mourinho of playing boring football.

Fabregas has hailed their performances during the whole campaign but has regrets over the second-leg of the Champions League last 16 tie PSG, especially after the French side were reduced to 10 men early in the game following Zlatan Ibrahimovic's dismissal.

"Yes, 100% [it was the toughest point of the season]. We were very disappointed to go out, but these things can happen. And it's PSG – they have also invested a lot in the team and have great players. But it happened and it's the only thing that I have negative in my mind for this season, "Fabregas said to Sport Magazine.

"You don't necessarily need to always play the way we did at the beginning to win things. We've shown that. If you look at it, the only time when you can say that we didn't perform as well as we could have was during the second half of the game against Paris Saint-Germain when we went out of the Champions League,"

"The first leg in Paris, I think we played a solid game. A [1-1] draw was a good result for us. But it's true that in the second half of the second leg, when PSG had 10 men [after Zlatan Ibrahimovic was sent off], we maybe should have approached the game in a different way. We should have played better than we did."

Loss to Bradford a low point

Fabregas added: "Apart from that, you can mention the result against Bradford [Chelsea lost 4-2 at home to the Bantams in the fourth round of the FA Cup], when a lot of players were rested and others were on the bench. There was a lot of rotation for that game, so I don't take that result as anything big because I know these kinds of things can happen – especially in English football."

But the former Arsenal and Barcelona midfielder refused to admit that Chelsea have been boring during the last part of the campaign in their bid to clinch the Premier League title.

"In the league we've won nearly all our games, and that's in the second half of the season as well. Whether we have done that by playing better or worse, I don't know. But it was done by playing for the result that we wanted, which was to win. And that's what we did," he said.

"Maybe we didn't play as fluently as before or with the same freedom, but we got results. So I get surprised when people say that we didn't play as well as in the first half of the season, because when you win the league with the amount of points and wins that we have got, and having lost only two games, it's a bit too much [smiles]."