PHIL PARKINSON presented José Mourinho with a dozen jars of jam before this reassuringly old-fashioned cup-tie, though his players threatened to leave the Portuguese in a pickle. Having anticipated a stroll in the park before Wednesday’s meeting with Barcelona, Chelsea were forced to wade through treacle, requiring two late goals from Joe Cole, on as a substitute, to book their place in the FA Cup quarterfinals with a 3-1 victory at home to Colchester United.

Having been given a fright, Mourinho was surprisingly relaxed afterwards, even inviting Barcelona to train at their training complex in Cobham tomorrow. The Chelsea manager launched another defence of his put-upon pitch, which resembles a Glastonbury campsite after a day of driving rain, suggesting Barcelona could help to improve the surface if they trained elsewhere.

“We don’t train here tomorrow, and if they want to train at our training centre tomorrow to give the pitch more time to recover then we offer it to them. I’m serious,” Mourinho said. “They do nothing the day before the game so I cannot spy on them. They do nothing, just move about and get used to the ball, which is different from in Spain. The pitch is not as bad as it looks. Sometimes you see beautiful people; with no brains they cannot think. Beautiful people, but stupid people. Sometimes you have ugly people who are intelligent, like scientists. Our pitch is a little bit like that. Our pitch is ugly. If you look at it from distance it is a disgrace, but the ball rolls well.”

Only Colchester managed to get the ball to roll truly in the first half yesterday, though Mourinho insisted there was never any recourse to panic. The decisive decision to introduce the resting Frank Lampard and Cole, though, was unscheduled.

“Lampard doesn’t like to rest and was very sad to be on the bench,” Mourinho said. “He was asking me to play for 45 minutes and I said I’d give him 25, but with the game at 1-1 I prefer to put him on. With Cole and Lampard in the second half I know I have players with appetite for the goal. They can get into scoring positions and shoot from 25 metres. When I play them I know they can get us into the last eight.”

Mourinho, in a strangely subdued mood, insisted he had not watched Barcelona’s 5-1 humbling of Real Betis on Saturday, though Cole was more excitable when asked about the challenge ahead. “I’m buzzing for Barcelona,” he said. “Last year it was magic, one of the best days of my career, and I’m really looking forward to it.

“We know from last year how difficult it is to go there and we have to get a result on Wednesday night. We respect Barcelona but there’s no fear. We got a good result last year and can do it again.”

While Chelsea entertain Barcelona, Colchester face the rather less uplifting prospect of a visit to Barnsley, though they can take heart from a performance that would have been far too good for most of their Coca-Cola League One rivals.

“If we’d have pulled it off it would be one of the cup upsets of all time,” Parkinson said. “Last year against Blackburn Rovers we stood off them a little bit and I wanted to come here and ruffle some feathers. I told the lads that they deserved to be here and deserved to put on a performance as we’ve got players who could play at a higher level.

“It’s fair to say that Cole, Lampard and [Hernán] Crespo were not bad substitutes. The impact of these three world-class players made the difference.”

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