Maccabi Tel-Aviv 0-4 Chelsea – Match Report

Three goals in the last fifteen minutes added to a first-half goal from Gary Cahill to make the result as easy as it should have been. We were extremely dominant in the first half although there were periods of the second half that saw the Blues make it harder work than it should have been.

Chelsea started slowly and could have been a goal down just a minute into the game when Peretz missed an extremely good chance. Two minutes later Tel Aviv’s Dasa was in a good position but shot wide.

Chelsea took a few minutes to grow into the game but promising signs started to show when Azpilicueta played a 1-2 with a Oscar but shot wide. Five minutes later Fabregas, who looks far better than he had done previously, played some good stuff and found Costa who saw his shot blocked. The dominance began to show and Fabregas then tried his luck with a lobbed shot from outside the box, though he put too much on it.

Not two minutes later was the deadlock broken when Willian whipped in a corner which saw Gary Cahill direct a bullet header at goal. Tel Aviv’s keeper made a fantastic save pushing it onto the post but Cahill was the fastest to react when he prodded home.

Chelsea continued to set up camp just outside Tel Aviv’s eighteen yard box with no real clear-cut chances being created. With little happening ex-Chelsea man Tal Ben Haim was sent off for kicking Diego Costa in the back of the legs – a rather silly and needless red card to pick up.

Rather than it being Chelsea come out looking to put the game to bed, Tel Aviv came out without fear and could have equalised within four minutes of the restart after some non-existent tracking from Hazard allowed their striker a chance on goal but thankfully Begovic stepped up to make the crucial save.

Tel Aviv continued to cause Chelsea a few problems, problems that could have been avoided had chances been taken. Costa in particular not looking his sharp self of last season. Just after the hour mark the Tel Aviv goalkeeper had to make two smart saves. First from Hazard and then from Azpilicueta. But not 30 seconds later were Tel Aviv racing away and were it not for another fine save from Begovic, would have been level!

Mourinho responded by replacing Hazard with Pedro, presumably for a tighter, more stable unit. Chelsea then won a free kick but Mourinho had to make another change with the injured Terry coming off for Kurt Zouma.

From the resulting free-kick, the man of the moment Willian stepped up and…well did what he does best – clip the ball up and over the wall so that Chelsea could finally have some breathing space. This seemed to knock the wind out of Tel Aviv’s players as two minutes later Baba Rahman registered an assist by delivering a brilliant cross in for Oscar, who we found out was the player expecting a baby! (congratulations on that!) Shortly before the final whistle Kurt Zouma powered in a header to make it 4-0 and ensure that scoreline reflected the overall dominance that the Blues had meaning that we end the night top and needing only a point in matchday six in order for us to qualify for the knock-out round as group leaders.

We’re still a fair bit from our best but two wins from two will hopefully provide the players with some confidence going into the London derby against Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday!

Thanks for reading and Up the Chels!!!

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