toptop
Chelsea
maintained their position at the top of the Conference League group table in
scintillating fashion as they dismantled Armenian Premier League side Noah with
an 8-0 win at Stamford Bridge.
It was the biggest win in the competition's short history, replacing
Nordsjaelland's 7-1 victory over Ludogorets in last season's group stage.
Chelsea - who beat Gent and Panathinaikos in their opening two European games of
the season - were almost stunned inside three minutes when Goncalo Gregorio was
allowed space to pump a shot at Filip Jorgensen, while Joao Felix missing an
open goal from inside the six-yard box did little to settle any early nerves.
Then the game became the mis-match many had expected. Tosin easily headed in
Enzo Fernandez's corner and, when Noah carelessly gave the ball away seconds
after the restart, Marc Guiu was on hand to nip in and double the lead.
Axel Disasi then headed in another corner, before Felix atoned for his earlier
miss to coolly clip over goalkeeper Ognjen Chancharevich and Mykhailo Mudryk
added a fifth with a sumptuous curling finish.
Incredibly, it was six at half-time, when Felix received the ball from Disasi,
chopped inside his man and hit a shot that crossed the line via a deflection.
There appeared to be less urgency from the Blues after the break -
understandably, given the game was already a foregone conclusion by that point.
But with just over 21 minutes to play, having already clipped the top of the
crossbar with a fierce shot, Christopher Nkunku found the net from a tight angle
after his first effort had been saved.
There was time for one more, too, with Nkunku rattling home a penalty after a
VAR review confirmed Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall had been fouled in the box, which
added further gloss to an unforgettable evening in west London.
Maresca: Football is full of surprises; we
had to be ready
Chelsea head coach Enzo Maresca:
"Once again, the players showed how professional and serious they are. It's very
easy to slip or fall down in these types of games. Football is full of
surprises. What I asked them before the game was to show how serious we are, how
professional we are and I think they showed that. It's an important message for
all of us.
"If you are not ready mentally, if you don't take it seriously, you can easily
drop against any team. The most important thing is that we are serious, we are
professional and this is the right thing we needed to show tonight."
On Mudryk's chances of starting in the Premier League: "We consider Misha, we
consider all of them every game. The thing is we have 24, 25 players, so we
always try to take the best 11 that we think.
"The important thing is Misha continues to improve, like tonight. He scored a
fantastic goal and he had some good moments."
On Tyrique George's full debut: "I think he was very good. I said before the
game, with young players, sometimes it's better to tell them (they are starting)
the day before, so they can prepare, but with some of them, it's better to tell
them near to the game, so they don't get nervous.
"We knew already Tyrique was going to start, but I just told him two hours
before the game and I think he was very good."
Mota: We lost control of the game
Noah manager Rui Mota:
"We didn't start as good as we wanted to, then we conceded two very quick goals
and, after this, we started losing control, leaving too many spaces.
"We made many mistakes, which is not normal for our team and when you are
playing against such good players that just need one chance to score one goal,
we started to concede a lot of goals and completely lost control of the game in
the first half.
"It is not easy to come back in the second half when you are losing 6-0, but the
boys had character, they tried to make something out of the game. We had a
couple of chances to score and this is the thing I'm most sad about, that with
what we created offensively, maybe we could score one or two goals.
"Congratulations to Chelsea. They were very strong, now we just need to move
on."
Click Here for Official Teamsheet
Teams
Chelsea Jorgensen; Disasi, Tosin, Badiashile, Veiga; Fernandez
(c) (Casadei h/t); George (Chukwuemeka 68), Nkunku (Rak-Sakyi 79), Joao Felix,
Mudryk; Guiu (Dewsbury-Hall h/t)
Subs Not Used Sanchez, Merrick, Cucurella, Gusto, Madueke
Booked
Goals Tosin 12, Guiu 13, Disasi 18, Joao Felix 21, 41 Mudryk
39, Nkunku 69, 76 (pen)
FC Noah Chancharevich; Miljkovic, Goncalo Silva, Muradian,
Hambartsumyan (c) (Avanesian 61); Eteki, Sangare (Pinson 61); Ferreira,
Manvelyan (Oulad Omar h/t), Cinari; Gregorio (Aias 61)
Subs Not Used Ploshchadnyi, Thorarinsson, Dashyan, Mendoza,
Santos, Petrsoyan
Booked Sangare 59, Cinari 90+4
Goals
Attendance 38,305
Referee Christian-Petru Ciochirca (AUT)
VAR Alan Kijas (AUT)