Chelsea swept past Armenian side Noah as Enzo Maresca’s second string turned in a merciless attacking display to win 8-0 at Stamford Bridge.
The Europa Conference League had been a testing ground for the head coach to ply his enviable strength in depth and, having hit four in each of their first two matches, his stand-ins raised the bar to blow the visiting team away with six goals scored in the first half demonstrating a chasmic gulf in class.
Tosin Adarabioyo and Marc Guiu celebrated first Chelsea goals since joining, Joao Felix grabbed the opportunity to impress with two more, while there were goals too for Axel Disasi and, most impressively, Mykhailo Mudryk whose curler from outside the box was the pick of them.
Christopher Nkunku scored twice after the break, one of them a penalty, to cement his spot at the head of Chelsea’s scoring charts.
Noah boss Rui Mota said before kick-off that his team had not come to London simply to defend and the first half lent a bitter irony to those words, as Chelsea tore into the Armenians with unimagined ease.
Four times inside the opening 21 minutes besieged visiting goalkeeper Ognjen Chancharevich picked the ball out of his net, first when Adarabioyo lost his man at a corner and stooped to glance Enzo Fernandez’s cross across goal and in.
Defender Goncalo Silva gave the ball away virtually from the kick-off allowing Guiu to steal in and double the lead, then Disasi headed a near identical goal to the first, making the most of another Fernandez delivery to notch his fourth Chelsea goal.
Noah had actually had the first opportunity of the match, Goncalo Gregorio lashing the ball straight at Filip Jorgensen after a speedy counter-attack, and though their defence was an incoherent mess there were moments of competence in the attacking third that briefly worried Chelsea.
That early threat was a distant memory by the time Felix grabbed the first of his two goals and it was another error by the hapless Silva, losing possession tamely and allowing Fernandez – captain for the night having lost his place in Maresca’s Premier League XI – to feed Felix for a simple finish.
That made it four goals in a blitzkrieg nine-minute spell, a signal for Chelsea briefly to pull back. If they intended to go easy thereafter on Noah, no one had told Mudryk, who lashed in a fifth as sublime as any this ground had seen on European nights.
Felix’s drive may have been going wide before captain Hovhannes Hambartsumyan swung a leg and diverted it into the corner for 6-0.
The only thing missing had been a goal for Nkunku. He was denied twice in the second half, first by Chancharevich then by the crossbar as he sought his ninth of the campaign.
Finally his luck turned 20 minutes from time when the ball rebounded back to him off the goalkeeper for him to squeak the rebound inside the near post.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall won a penalty allowing the France international to complete the rout.
Sourse: breakingnews.ie
