A youthful Chelsea side eased past Astana 3-1 to continue their recent winning run and all but confirm a place in the Conference League last 16.
As expected, Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca made 10 changes from the team that won 4-3 at Tottenham to go second in the Premier League on Sunday, with a mixture of experienced players and young hopefuls looking to make their mark. In fact, it was the first time in the club’s history they had fielded four teenagers in a European clash.
One such player was Marc Guiu, 18, who opened the scoring after just 14 minutes after a wonderful bit of skill on the right to breeze past his marker, before powering into the box and coolly beating Mukhammedzhan Seysen at his near post.
The Spain U19 international thought he had added a second four minutes later after impressive approach play from Pedro Neto, who made his way to the right byline before pulling a cross back for Guiu to seemingly bundle the ball home from close range – however, the goal was credited to unfortunate Astana defender Aleksandr Marochkin.
Six minutes before half-time, the game was all but over as a contest when the unmarked Renato Veiga rose highest of all to head home Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s corner from the right to make the 16-hour, 3,479-mile round trip worthwhile.
Astana did hit back just before the interval when Marin Tomasov worked himself some space in a crowded box, before the skipper curled home past a diving Filip Jorgensen and in off the post.
But the Blues did a professional job to stop any hint of a second-half Astana comeback as Maresca’s side won a sixth game in a row for the first time since 2022, extending their unbeaten run to nine matches in all competitions in the process, and remaining top of the Conference League standings with a 100 per cent record.
What the managers said…
Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca:
“I was impressed by all of them [debutants]. The ones that started – Tyrique, Sam and Josh – they all have done very good. Very happy for them. Also the ones that came on in the second half. So I’m pleased for them.
“We knew it would be cold. We tried to adapt. The players did fantastically with the weather conditions, long flight yesterday and also the pitch probably was not ideal. But I’m very happy for the players.
“We will land at around six o’clock [in the morning] UK time, but we are going to try to prepare for the game in the best way we can as we have always done this season.”
