Chelsea might depend on Christian Pulisic and Kai Havertz for targets with misfiring Romelu Lukaku rested. The London membership resumed its Champions League title protection by cruising to a 2-0 victory over Lille on Tuesday to take management of the spherical of 16 matchup heading into subsequent month’s second leg.
Relishing an attacking function, Havertz took solely eight minutes to go Chelsea in entrance by assembly Hakim Ziyech’s nook. “We have a lot of good strikers, so it is also good to have a change and not make it easy for the opposition,” Havertz mentioned.
“Today it worked good and I enjoy every forward position.” The second within the 63rd minute was created by the dynamism of N’Golo Kante, who ran half the size of the pitch unchallenged earlier than feeding Pulisic to complete with a shot clipped into the underside nook.
“When N’Golo is driving like that, it’s just a question of keeping up with him,” Pulisic mentioned, “and I managed to do that and finish it off.” Kante’s contribution significantly happy Chelsea supervisor Thomas Tuchel. “He’s struggled with belief and intensity in recent matches so it was good he stepped up today,” Tuchel mentioned.
“You can see how big an impact he has when he’s in good shape.” The ease of Chelsea’s victory mirrored their standing this season. While Chelsea is third within the Premier League, Lille is mid-table in its French title protection. “We lacked a little quality in the final ball and that cost us,” Lille ahead Jonathan David mentioned.
Tuchel mentioned fatigue was the explanation for leaving out Lukaku, the club-record $135 million offseason signing who touched the ball solely seven instances in Saturday’s 1-0 win over Crystal Palace. Lukaku didn’t come off the bench towards Lille.
“After the match where everyone was focused on his few touches … it was not the moment to put him into the next fire,” Tuchel mentioned. “It was the second to take a step again, that was the choice and that’s it.
“We have now had a strong win and a strong performance. We have now had a good win and all the questions are still about Romelu, so the focus is huge.” And it’s simpler to relaxation Lukaku when there’s one other ahead who price over $90 million to have the ability to depend on. Havertz, who scored Chelsea’s winner within the Champions League closing final season, additionally scored the objective that sealed the Club World Cup title earlier this month.
“He has really stepped up,” Tuchel mentioned. “His work fee is immense, and the amount, the areas of the pitch that he covers for us may be very, superb. He was once more decisive, he created possibilities, bought concerned and was by no means shy of defending.
“We played with a very aggressive high line with Hakim, with all three offensive players together. It was the formation to have intensity, and a high work rate consistently throughout the whole match and they all did very well.”
In the evening’s different first leg, Dusan Vlahovic scored 31 seconds into his Champions League debut as Juventus drew 1-1 at Villarreal, which leveled by means of Dani Parejo within the second half.
