- As Benzema, Asensio sink Lampard’s Chelsea 2-0
- Milan teach naive Napoli lesson in counter-attacking football
France goal machine, Karim Benzema just loves playing against Premier League clubs. And on Wednesday night, he continued his torment of English opposition by opening the scoring in Real Madrid’s deserved 2-0 victory over Chelsea at the Santiago Bernabeu
In opening the scores against the Blues, it means the French forward’s last 11 goals in the Champions League have all come against Premiership sides.
At the end of the 90 minutes, pundits were just mussing how many goals Benzema would have scored by now if he was playing against the likes of Wesley Fofana and Ben Chilwell on a weekly basis!
As usual, Vinicius Junior ran riot too as he repeatedly danced through the Blues’ back-line all evening. It was the pacy winger’s shot that allowed Benzema to open the scores, while Marco Asensio whipped his perfect pass into the bottom corner to seal victory for Madrid.
However, this quarter-final tie is not yet over. Chelsea could yet turn things around in the second leg at Stamford Bridge but that appears highly unlikely right now for two reasons: Firstly, the Blues’ abject form; and secondly, the continued presence of Benzema up front!
Indeed, it was another great night for the Ballon d’Or holder, who has now netted 20 goals against Premier League clubs in continental competition (only Lionel Messi has more!).
Benzema was always going to score and Chelsea made it rather easy for him to break the deadlock. However, his positioning to create the tap-in opportunity should not be ignored because the French forward simply ghosted into the box, and was entirely unmarked as he turned the ball into an empty net.
Benzema was equally effective for the remainder of the contest, working in tandem with Vinicius to terrorise the Chelsea backline. He could’ve perhaps had a second in stoppage time, but will still be satisfied with his opener. And besides, he’ll get another chance to add to his impressive haul against Premier League clubs when these two sides meet again in west London next week.
How Chelsea would dearly love to have a No.9 of the quality of Benzema. The club’s clueless new owners have spent a record-breaking amount of money since taking over last year and yet they’ve not got a single reliable goalscorer.
After all, anybody who was expecting loan signing Joao Felix to score freely for Chelsea was obviously deluding themselves. The Portuguese has never been prolific, neither for club nor country.
But nobody could have foreseen that his finishing would be this poor. When big chances have presented themselves, particularly in the Champions League, Felix has fluffed his lines time and time again. At this stage, it’s not even surprising.
In Italy, AC Milan taught naive Napoli lesson in counter-attacking football as Brahim Diaz sparks a 1-0 win at San Siro on Wednesday in an all-Italian Champions League quarter-final first leg.
Though Napoli is leading Serie A by a whooping 16 points, they were outsmarted again by AC Milan, being forced to settle for long-range, low-probability shots while the hosts repeatedly swung back on the counter-attack with higher quality chances.
Rafael Leao’s winding run from midfield into the opposing area, which ended with a left-footed shot dragged just wide, should have been taken as a strong warning. Instead, Napoli allowed Brahim Diaz to carry the ball unimpeded half the length of the pitch and set up Ismael Bennacer’s first career European goal.
They were then fortunate not to go further behind when Simon Kjaer smashed a close-range header against the crossbar before half-time.
Napoli sorely missed their injured striker and top goal scorer, Victor Osimhen, as Eljif Elmas was a misfit starting up front in his place. Whereas Osimhen could have potentially popped up in the perfect places and put away half-chances – as he has done all season – Elmas was a blunt, ineffective weapon.
For now, Napoli need Osimhen next week in the return leg, or else the best Champions League run in their history will likely come to an end.
