Chelsea beat Lille in the home match of the 1/8 finals of the Champions League - the Londoners made a significant bid for the quarter-finals

[Mila Eryomina]

In the meeting between Chelsea and Lille at Stamford Bridge, the favorite was obvious, but the last results of the Londoners did not really match the level of football - the “pensioners” created critically few chances, and Lukaku made only 7 touches to the ball in 94 minutes of the match with Crystal Palace. The Great Danes, in turn, were not as weak as it might seem from the Ligue 1 standings - they remained in second position in key indicators. All this gave hope for an interesting match with goals and open intrigue until the end of the confrontation.

Chelsea had an open question on the scheme. It depended on the readiness of Azpilicueta - if he had not had time to recover from the injury, the hosts would most likely have played 4-3-3. Cesar had time, so the Londoners switched to the usual 3-4-1-2. Jorginho, Werner and Lukaku remained on the bench, with the Belgian Thomas Tuchel unhooked with the wording "too tired". Havertz, Ziyech and Pulisic played in the attack.

Josselin Gurvennec put up a fairly predictable squad. Of the surprises, one can only note the absence of Yilmaz and Gudmundsson, instead of whom they released Sanches and Onan. Obviously, the guests' mentor wanted to give the team as much dynamics as possible (it would be difficult to achieve this with the veteran Yilmaz) - this was noticeable at the start of the first half. Lille took high speeds and acted very openly, on the attack, with throws on the move to the attackers.

Do you want to feel the real football atmosphere? Invite your friends and watch the top Champions League matches at home with a glass of Żubrówka. Żubrówka – discover the legend! For those who want the real! Find out more about Żubrowka here.

However, it was not possible to create a single moment in the first 10 minutes. Chelsea worked better with the ball, easily opening up areas in the opponent's half and quickly creating two goalscoring episodes. On the 5th minute, Havertz closed Azpilicueta's cross into the goalkeeper's area (above the goal), and on the 7th minute, Kai entered the edge of the penalty area, swung the defender and shot into the far corner - Jardim jumped the ball to the corner.

Corner became fatal for Lille. Ziyech performed the serve, and Havertz, flying into the penalty area from the depths, without any resistance struck a header with a rebound from the lawn. No chance for Jardim. 1:0.

"Dogi" after a missed goal did not "float" at all. The French continued to climb forward, almost leveling the score in the 12th minute due to a cross from Sanches - Rudiger could not knock him out, striking the ball in such a way that it flew over the crossbar. The subsequent corner ended in a panic with several blocked shots.

In the 20th minute, Bamba could break out one on one - he ran for a gorgeous throw from the depths performed by Celik. Mendy saved Chelsea by running out of the box and knocking the sphere out from under the striker's feet. In addition, the teams exchanged several inaccurate long-range shots, while Marcos Alonso and Andre screwed up shots from close range.

The vast majority of these episodes took place in the starting 25 minutes, but the second half of the first half was uninteresting. “Pensioners” and “greatest” kept a good momentum and tried to create something at the gates of others, but most of these attempts were completely unsuccessful. In the end, the players went to rest with a minimal advantage of Chelsea.

At the beginning of the second half, Chelsea missed three good chances to score at once. So, in the 47th minute, Azpilicueta succeeded in a dangerous cross to the near post (Jardim intercepted the ball), on the 54th minute Alonso took a rebound on the left edge of the penalty area and shot into the far (they managed to block the shot), and on the 58th, Havertz broke on the flank and powerfully banged over the gate. Lil snarled with counterattacks and crosses, but it did not reach the moment.

Additional strength "dogs" gave Chelsea unexpected problems with personnel. In the 51st minute, the hosts lost due to an injury to Kovacic, and in the 60th minute Ziyech sprained his ankle. Loftus-Cheek and Saul were released instead. Lille went ahead, but it ended in disaster.

In the 63rd minute, the combination between Sanches and Celik in the opponent's half ended in the loss of the ball, after which Kante dispersed the counterattack. Having run through the hymen with Sheka on his back, Ngolo gave a pass to the left edge of the penalty area under the actual exit of Pulisic face to face – 2:0!

Joscelin Gurvennek immediately made substitutions, releasing Yilmaz and then Gudmundsson, but this move did not bring any benefit. The exit of Ben Arfa and Zhegrova in the 81st minute did not help either. The French persistently climbed forward, but 30 minutes after the missed goal, they did not create a single dangerous moment in the game - you can only remember the corner kick, which was closed by Botman. Right into Mandy's hands.

However, Chelsea also did not disturb the defense of Lille, and in the last minutes the hosts even sat down to their gates. Thomas Tuchel tried to remedy the situation by releasing Werner and Sarr, but they did not excel. But Mendy almost brought Lilja a goal – while taking out in the 5th stoppage minute, Edouard slipped, knocking the ball into the opponent. Fortunately for the Londoners, Tiago Silva cleaned up after the goalkeeper.

In the end, the final whistle signaled a comfortable 2-0 victory for Chelsea.

class win

Lille had a pretty good fight against Chelsea. Josselin Gurvennec rationally reacted to the possibilities of his squad, deciding to play proactive football – staying in the “bus” with a defense that conceded almost 10 goals more than expected in the championship was stupid. Yes, and the attack group of the "dogs" is good.

As a result, the guests made more shots (15-9), not losing in possession (50% vs 50%) and touches in the penalty area (27-30) – and on touches in the opponent's third, Lille greatly outweighed Chelsea. The Mastiffs are not far behind in the sharpness of passes in the game (0.98 xT vs 1.33), and the pressing intensity was equal (9.2 PPDA vs 9.1). The line of defense of the champion of France at the same time was located 6 meters higher than that of the British.

Lille played more aggressively and brazenly, demonstrating a fairly decent quality of play. However, there was no sense of loss of control from Chelsea at any stage of the match, and in key indicators the Londoners showed significantly higher efficiency. In particular, they made all their shots from outside the penalty area, having played twice as high xG - 1.41 vs 0.68. The first shot was struck from 5 meters, the second went on target, and the third ended in a goal. This is the class.

Chelsea, with rather passive football, had three clear scoring chances (according to the  Opta metric ). Aggressive Lille - not a single one, and here even no analytical portals are needed to understand this. However, the advantage of the “pensioners” over the “greatest” was not only and not so much in sharpness, but in working under pressure, in small moments, in transitional phases and in general organization.

In almost all episodes, the hosts had good openings, filled rebound areas and well-timed breaks. The guests could not boast of this. The same goal by Havertz came due to the lack of a personal guardian for Kai. Chelsea wouldn't let that happen.

In the end, one should not forget about the individual advantage either - the second goal in this regard is indicative. Defensive player Sheka ran 70 meters along Kante and then along Pulisic, but did not catch up with anyone.

It is unlikely that Thomas Tuchel can be completely satisfied with the game. His charges continued the negative trend for a small number of moments and allowed Lille too much. This time the class allowed for the victory, but it won't be that easy with Liverpool at the weekend. However, against the Great Danes specifically, Chelsea got a classic class win, with low activity getting a great result.

Kante is the man of the match

The goals were scored by Havertz and Pulisic, but Kante was the true MVP of the meeting. This was recognized by both UEFA and Thomas Tuchel:

I am very pleased with Kante's performance. He didn't get hooked right away. He struggled in recent games, but today he came out well. You can immediately see the impact it has. This is a game-changing football player. He has a big impact on the game of the team,” said Tuchel.

Kante is no longer a pure defensive midfielder. It is quite possible to call him a Chelsea playmaker - and in the duel against Lille, the Frenchman showed his skills in all its glory. Using high speed, Ngolo was the first on draw balls, and in the work between the lines, calmness and the ability to find an addressee for a forward pass were striking.

He has 48 accurate passes out of 56. They fit 1 assist, 2 underhand passes, 8 advance passes (only Ruediger could do the same) and 19 passes in the opponent's third.

In addition, Kante won 6 out of 12 duels, completed 4 tackles out of 7 attempts, had 10 ball returns and 2 interceptions, and also beat opponents on dribbling twice (from 3 attempts). This high level of involvement in both creative and disruptive work speaks volumes about Ngolo's importance on the pitch.

Kante connected Chelsea's game with his movements and his assist was a well-deserved reward. Great French match.

[Anna Roccova]

All hot football news immediately gets to the pages of the site https://footbal24.in/football-blog/. The main events are necessarily covered in the daily news feed, which gathers more and more frequent guests from among sports fans. All information, from news and reviews to analytical data, is extremely easy to find on the site.