STAMFORD BRIDGE – If Thomas Tuchel had been granted one wish ahead of a likely formality against Malmo in the Champions League, it would likely have been a straightforward evening for Romelu Lukaku.
The visit of a team ranked 56th in Europe by Uefa’s coefficients should have presented the perfect opportunity for the striker to break his six-game duck, a run Tuchel blamed on his £97.5m asset being “mentally tired” and “overplayed” at the end of the international break.
Instead, with Lukaku taken off with an ankle injury sustained while winning a penalty, it was an unlikely pairing who opened the scoring as the ball bobbled awkwardly inside the box and upon being cleared, found its way to Thiago Silva.
The centre-back’s cross from the right found defensive partner Andreas Christensen – not to be confused with Malmo’s captain, Anders Christiansen – who struggled for balance before slicing it in.
Though Jorginho’s penalty appeals were waved away, when the spot-kick did come, it was a pity that it was at a visible cost to Lukaku, who writhed in pain and was replaced with Kai Havertz immediately afterwards.
This was a manifestation of the Belgian at his best, as he could have gone down far more easily after muscling off not one, but two Malmo defenders. In desperation, Lasse Nielsen wrapped both legs around his ankle and earned himself a deserved yellow card. Jorginho hit a perfectly placed penalty into the top left of the net.
Even with the Blues cruising, Tuchel’s disproportionate reaction when Havertz over-hit a pass soon after highlighted his anger at no longer having his first-choice striker on the pitch. His options soon became even more constricted as Timo Werner pulled a hamstring before half-time and requiring brief medical treatment, he looked in discomfort as he headed straight down the tunnel.
If any positives could be drawn from a grim night on the injury front, Werner’s substitution gave Callum Hudson-Odoi the chance to play in his preferred forward role.
Whenever Hudson-Odoi has voiced his frustrations at his limited game time at Stamford Bridge, sympathies have been tinged with a suggestion that he does not always offer an attribute which Chelsea do not already have on the pitch.
There are few that can match him for pace, however, and especially not in Malmo’s defence. Starting a run from the edge of his own box, by the time he teed up Havertz for the hosts’ third of the night, he had made his steamrolling energy look effortless.
Tuchel acknowledged afterwards that both he and Havertz had put themselves in the manager’s thoughts going forwards.
“Always a chance and always necessary to prove a point now so we will have some games without Romelu and Timo, everybody is invited to join the race for minutes on the pitch and when they’re on the pitch they need to show the hunger and determination to be decisive and be in the box,” Tuchel said.
“They did today and there’s still room for them to improve. Saturday [against Norwich], we need the same hunger and determination for whoever starts for us. We need goals to win matches and we need solutions without Romleu and Timo, that’s clear.”
From the silk of Hudson-Odoi, to the savvy of Antonio Rudiger, who knowingly tapped his head after hurling himself to the floor after a shove from Eric Larsson, Jorginho subsequently converting the second penalty.
Rudiger was responsible too for one of the most underrated passes of the night; it was a matter-of-fact ball into feet from six yards but had Werner not taken one touch too many, it might have gone down as a visionary carving open of Malmo’s beleaguered back line.
The irony, of course, is that despite the two strikers with whom they started being absent for most of it, Chelsea recorded their biggest win of the season.
The European champions showed last season that they do not require buckets of goals to win the Champions League and they still have only five from three group stage matches – well shy of Liverpool and Manchester City, the other two English teams with serious aspirations of winning the competition this term, who have 11 each.
It still proved a useful experiment in how to cope when Lukaku is either absent or, having registered just one attempt at goal against Brentford, struggling for form. That has been true since 14 September, when he last scored the winner against Zenit Saint Petersburg.
Tuchel is normally proactive rather than reactive, yet when his hand was forced, he will have learned plenty about his secondary attacking options as he waits on news of Lukaku and Werner.
from Football – inews.co.uk https://ift.tt/3ndF1ud
Post a Comment