Cities – Chelsea coach Thomas Tuchel was satisfied with his team’s performance, in the victory that was achieved the day before yesterday, Tuesday, once morest Lille 2-0, in the first leg of the first round of the Champions League football competition.
“We would prefer to score goals away from home, but we came out with a clean sheet once more and we deserve it,” Tuchel told BT Sport.
“We worked very hard to prevent them from getting opportunities,” he said. Lil is a strong team. We had our ups and downs, but we were tough, and we worked together. We deserved to win, we kind of changed the squad with a midfield of 3 players. We started well in the second half and then became passive following the goal. We were defending a little bit too deeply and were not very active.”
He added: “We struggled a little bit but we never conceded chances. We defended very well from set-pieces and kept our confidence. We fought back and scored a very good second goal and we had a chance to score the third.”
Regarding Kovacic and Ziyech’s injury, he commented: “I don’t know. I should have replaced Kovacic in the first half, I didn’t talk to the doctor regarding Hakim and I hope it’s not serious, today is Tuesday, there are a lot of days to recover until Sunday, we don’t like to have too many injuries and more impact on the bench in a tactical matter. I hope they are ready for the final on Sunday.”
Tochel praised the performance of the star of the match, N’Golo Kante, saying: “He was not at his best in the last matches, following returning from injury, but he was wonderful today. He played a great match.”
For his part, Chelsea star Christian Pulisic showed his team’s victory over its guest Lille, following he scored the second goal, through a decisive pass from his French colleague Kante.
“It’s always good to be on the list of registrants, and the most important thing is that the goal helped us achieve a positive result,” Pulisic said in comments carried by the European Union website.
“When Kante leads the attack in this way, it is just a matter of keeping up with him, I was able to do that and finish the opportunity.”
He stressed, “We are in a good position now, but we know that it will not be easy in the return leg, we need to work on our control more, the match seemed a bit open sometimes, we defended well as well.”
Kante: We were lucky
with the first goal
In addition, Kante expressed his pleasure for his contribution to his team’s victory over its guest, Lille, following a distinguished performance that led to the second goal for his team, to win the award for the best player in the match.
“It was a good match and it was an important result for us,” Kante said following the match. We were lucky to score at the beginning and then it became more difficult, but the second goal helped us get a good win.”
He added: “Lille improved (following Chelsea’s first goal), they have some outstanding players and found some space to attack the defense line. They had some chances but we managed the game well and in the end we won well.”
Speaking regarding the goal he made, Kante said: “From what I remember, Thiago (Silva) gave me a good ball, I turned around and had space in front of me where Kai (Havertz) was running on one side and Christian on the other. I gave the ball to Christian and he beat the goalkeeper to give us an important lead with two goals.”
Kante explained that his team should beware of facing the return, saying: “It is not over (the confrontation) yet. We are playing once morest a difficult team and the return leg will be really important, you have to play well and win.”
Chelsea striker Kai Havertz seemed comfortable following the match, who opened the scoring with a header in the eighth minute, knowing that he played the role of the outspoken striker, in return for the Belgian Romelu Lukaku sitting on the bench.
Havertz said in statements to BT Sports following the end of the match: “We knew it would be a difficult match, they played good football and the first half was very difficult for us, now the first part of the match is over, and the next match we must win as well.”
Havertz continues his brilliance in the Champions League, a few days following he scored the winning goal for his team in the Club World Cup final once morest Palmeiras (2-1), at a time when he cannot transfer his continental brilliance to his participation in the English Premier League.
And regarding that, the German striker said, “I always do my best also in the English Premier League, and sometimes you have a lot of luck, and sometimes you don’t, and I help as much as I can.”
“We have a lot of good strikers, and it’s also great to make things difficult for the opponent with a change. Today it worked out well and I’m enjoying the attacking position, we didn’t play our best football, we mightn’t continue to be aggressive the last few weeks but we won 2-0 and that’s the most important thing.”
Chelsea has a chance to win a new title next Sunday evening, when it meets Liverpool in the League Cup final, and Havertz said, “We have a great chance to win another title on Sunday, it will be a difficult match. We will gather our strength and hopefully we will win.”
Fonte: We can hurt Chelsea
On the other hand, Lille captain Jose Fonte refused to reduce his team’s chances of reaching the quarter-finals of the Champions League, despite losing the day before yesterday.
Lille was not an easy grab for the defending champion, but he struggled to pose a threat to the Blues goal, at a time when Havertz and Pulisic managed to settle the first leg.
“At this level of competition, you cannot give up easy balls, because your opponents will not miss such opportunities,” Fonte told Canal Plus following the match.
“We had several chances, but at this level you have to score. We must be more effective, more aggressive with the ball. We know the difference. They had two chances to score.”
“We put our game plan in place, we made mistakes. We lost balls in critical places. When that happens, it’s hard.”
“We have to look at what we can improve,” he concluded. We have the second leg in front of our fans and we can hurt them. It will be difficult, but we showed tonight that it seems possible.”
As for Fonte’s colleague, striker Jonathan David, he was upset with his team’s performance, and David said in comments carried by the UEFA website, “Championship holders Chelsea, we knew it would be difficult.”
“Chelsea scored when he had the opportunity, we lacked a little quality in the final touch, and that cost us the loss, when you make mistakes at the top level, you pay a heavy price, that’s what happened, they are tactically good.”
“We had some good situations, we might have been more accurate in scoring and creating chances, we will give everything in the second leg in front of our fans.” -(agencies)
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