Nigeria midfielder, Mikel Obi, has apologised for the mistake that cost Chelsea the chance to open their Champions League defence with a win after their 2-2 draw with Juventus.

The holders blew a two-goal lead at Stamford Bridge Wednesday night, with a pair of defensive blunders costing them dearly against the Italian champions.

"If I want to make up an excuse, I can," Mikel said.

"But, for me, I gave the ball away. I put my hands up, we move on.

"I'm sorry about the mistake, but there are no excuses."

Mikel also admitted that the players had temporarily switched off for the goal which allowed Juventus to rescue a point at Stamford Bridge Wednesday night.

'It was a game we should have won,' said a clearly frustrated Mikel. 'We played very well, had more control of the game and looked more dangerous.

'I'm disappointed, it was my pass and I over-hit it. After that we should have reacted properly but we didn't.

'The second goal was a cheap one to give away, we switched off, it was a pass to Eden [Hazard] that didn't quite get there and then we switched off, we should have dealt with it properly.'

In spite of the apology Mikel was forced to quit Twitter after several abusive messages were sent to him on the social network. A search for Mikel's verified Twitter account brought this message: "The user jmikel12official does not exist", confirming that the Super Eagles star had quit the microblogging site he only joined in April.
Meanwhile, Mikel has  stressed the need to remain positive moving forward.

'We started the game well and scored the two goals,' he explained. 'We had possession and had the game under control. They scored their goal, and then we came out for the second half in the same way we started the first.

'2-2 is not bad, we need to keep our heads up. We wanted to win the game but Juventus are a good team, tactically they are very sound, so we knew we had to dig deep to get our goals which is what we did, I'm just disappointed with the way we gave away the second goal.'

The biggest positive was undoubtedly the performance of Oscar, making his first start for the club, who lit up west London with two long-range strikes worthy of the biggest stage.

Mikel paid tribute to the tricky Brazilian, before underlying the importance of not looking too far ahead.
'He's a great player, he's done brilliantly scoring the two goals, but his general play was good as well. Hopefully he's going to be a great player for the club,' said the Nigerian.

'It's going to be difficult, obviously we want to win it again, we want to go as far as we can but there's no kidding about how tough it's going to be.

'Our first thought is to come out of the group stage and then look forward. Right now we want to take each game as it comes, and the next game is going to be an important one.’