London, Sep 14 (EFE).- Chelsea battled for a lot of their opening contest of the new Champions League period, yet a second-half objective by Romelu Lukaku was sufficient to provide the victor a 1-0 triumph below Tuesday night over Zenit Saint Petersburg.
One scoring possibility for the Belgian worldwide was all the Blues needed to find away with three factors at Stamford Bridge.
On the play, Lukaku signified with his left arm that he wanted the sphere and Cesar Azpilicueta sent out in a beautiful lofted cross from much outside the penalty area for his teammate, that powered residence a header just inside the near blog post in the 69th min.
Sergei Semak’s guys had much more than held their very own to that time of the competition, not only defending well however producing come across attack.
Regardless of their offensive firepower, Chelsea struggled to break down their challenger’s lines of four defenders and five midfielders.
Lukaku played well with his back to the Zenit objective but it was not nearly enough to create any kind of threat in the final 3rd.
The going to Russian team, meanwhile, sought to utilize the speed of Iranian onward Sardar Azmoun as well as took care of to generate the initial shot on objective in the 38th-minute of a mainly dull first fifty percent.
The Premier League side revived after the brake with offensive stimulates provided by Hakim Ziyech, Mason Mount and also center back Antonio Rudiger, that virtually tallied the objective of the match with a run from his side of the field to the Zenit area and a right-footed blast that went a pair of meters large of the far post.
Zenit Saint Petersburg, for their part, nearly obtained the equalizer after Lukaku’s objective when alternative Artem Dzyuba received a cross from Azmoun but pressed his attempt simply wide of the blog post.
“We battled a bit to develop possibilities and shots in the initial fifty percent,” Chelsea head instructor Thomas Tuchel claimed after the suit played before virtually 40,000 fans. “In the 2nd half it was a bit less complicated to find room and also shoot. It was a been worthy of win. Difficult gained.”
The 28-year-old Lukaku, that is back at Stamford Bridge (where he played early in his occupation) after Chelsea handed over a club document 97.5-million-pound ($135 million) transfer fee to acquire him from Inter Milan, attributed Azpilicueta for sending in a “lovely ball” to set up the video game’s only goal.
With their win, Chelsea are now in second location in Group H behind Juventus, that beat Malmo 3-0 on Tuesday and also have the side in objective differential.
Semak said of his players that they “allowed Chelsea greater than we ought to have after the interval.”
“We had a great opportunity at the end and didn’t take it,” the Zenit supervisor claimed. “It’s still a reasonable result. Chelsea were the far better group as well as deserved to win. But on the whole we had a great video game, especially defensively.” EFE
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