Chelsea 2-0 Servette FC, UEFA Conference League: Post-match reaction, ratings

Well, that was a bit of a struggle. A lot of a struggle? Certainly at times in the first half. Thankfully, we did enough in the second half to take a 2-0 advantage into next week’s second leg in Switzerland.

Chelsea made a bright start to the game, and with a bit of luck, Marc Guiu could’ve opened the scoring inside the first few minutes. But he ran out of room as he took the ball around the goalkeeper, and then Chelsea soon ran out of that initial impetus as well, with the visitors growing into the game — not that Filip Jörgensen had much of anything to do in the Chelsea net, with the defense generally comfortable as well, outside of a few awkward moments on set pieces and long throws. Chelsea did have a few promising moments of our own, but lacked the execution necessary to make them count.

We made another bright start to the second half as well, and this time we did get on the scoreboard with Christopher Nkunku drawing and converting a penalty. Then Guiu had a horrendous miss on an empty net after closing down the goalkeeper and winning the ball, which took the wind out of his, and Chelsea’s sails and we reverted to more of a first half flow.

A triple change from Maresca did little to wake up the troops; if anything, it made us more sloppy and unfocused. So Noni Madueke decided to things into his own hands instead, and give us the needed second goal just as the game entered its final quarter hour.

Chelsea managed to see out the result from there, though not without a few more sloppy moments, this time at the back, with Servette hitting the crossbar, letting a couple good chances go to waste, and Jörgensen making a big save on the final kick of the game.

So, 2-0. Half the job done. Finish it next week.

Carefree.

• Lots of rotation from Maresca, with only Caicedo and Nkunku retaining their spots from the weekend
• Captain Caicedo! Armband back to Enzo for the final few minutes after Caicedo taken off.
• A clean sheet!
• Next up: Wolves away on Sunday, then the second leg of this thing on Thursday
• KTBFFH

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