Chelsea beat Lille in UEFA Champions League with Lukaku benched

Chelsea took a 2-0 lead in the first leg of their UEFA Champions League round of sixteen clashes with Lille on Tuesday evening.

The Blues did it with their striker Romelu Lukaku surprisingly benched by Thomas Tuchel had previously stated that the team will back the Belgian who had a rough weekend in the 1-0 win over Crystal Palace at the Selhurst Park.

Instead, the German manager went with a frontline of Hakim Ziyech, Kai Havertz, and Christian Pulisic in a 3-4-3 formation.

However, it wasn’t long before the German forward headed in a cross from Hakim Ziyech after just eight minutes into the game against the French side.

It wasn’t until the 63rd minute of the game before American midfielder Christian Pulisic made it 2-0 for a comfortable first-leg result, especially with the away goal already nonexistent for this season.

Meanwhile, Chelsea has now turned their attention to the Carabao Cup final at the weekend against Liverpool as highlighted by Kai Havertz, who expressed his delight playing further forward although he did state that the team did not play its best football.

“We did not play our best football. We could not get the aggressiveness of the last few weeks, but we won 2-0, and that is the most important thing. Sunday is another competition, and we have to focus on that now. It is crazy, because we have a lot of chances to win another trophy on Sunday. It will be a tough game. We will put all our strength together and hope we win this game.” Havertz said.

Chelsea got past Tottenham in the semifinals of the Carabao Cup, while Liverpool beat Arsenal to secure the final spot to face the blues.

Meanwhile, Manchester United will face Atletico Madrid in the UEFA Champions League on Wednesday, while the second UEFA Champions League game of Tuesday saw Juventus play a 1-1 draw in Spain against Villarreal.

Written by: Daniel Ademiju Idowu