André Villas-Boas said a few days ago that nobody's job on the pitch is safe, including his captain John Terry, vice-captain Frank Lampard, or 50 million pound striker Fernando Torres. While Torres was left out of Chelsea's Premier League game against Sunderland last weekend, today it was Terry's and Lampard's turn to sit out. However, while Terry was not even on the bench for Chelsea, Lampard arrived as a substitute in the 65th minute for Raul Meireles.
AVB chose to stick with his favoured 4-3-3 formation, once again playing Daniel Sturridge up front. Here is the lineup:
Mata ------------- Torres ------------- Sturridge (Anelka)
Malouda ------------- Mikel ------------- Meireles (Lampard)
Cole ------------- Luiz (Alex) ------------- Ivanovic ------------- Bosingwa
Cech
BENCH: Hilàrio, Ferreira, McEachran, Kalou.
PLAYER OVERVIEW (NOTABLE PLAYERS):
Petr Cech: Made a very important save early in the game to disallow Leverkusen an almost-sure goal. 11 shots, 2 on target, 2 saves, no goals against.
David Luiz: Made an excellent run all the way from Chelsea's half to the Leverkusen goal, passed well with Mata and Torres, and scored a brilliant one-timed strike to give Chelsea the lead. Played a bit physically (there were a number of occasions where he could have easily been sent off but for the leniency of the referee), and was lucky to escape the game with just a yellow.
Fernando Torres: Worked very hard to win back the ball and keep it in Chelsea possession. He also worked very well with both goal-scorers and assisted both of Chelsea's goals. Excellent vision on the Luiz goal, and was extremely unselfish to allow Mata the sure goal instead of giving himself an unlikely shot. Both Luiz and Mata showed their appreciation by pointing to him while celebrating, showing the fans that he was responsible for the goals.
Juan Mata: Another magnificent performance by Mata to get himself a goal. Took three excellent shots on target (the most on the team - tied with Sturridge), scored one of them, and won quite a number of tackles as well. Every time I watch him play, I'm almost mesmerized. He has great vision and works really well with every player on Chelsea.
Daniel Sturridge: Sturridge's excellent performance on the weekend convinced AVB to let him start toady against Leverkusen, and he made the most of it. He came extremely close to scoring a beautiful goal, which was denied only by the opposing goalkeeper Leno (who, in my opinion, was one of the best players on the pitch. He saved 10 shots - and quite a few of them seemed almost unstoppable).
David Luiz celebrating his brilliant goal in the 67th minute.
GAME HIGHLIGHTS:
While exciting events were already underway at Camp Nou, where Alexandre Patio scored in 25 seconds (tying for 5th fastest Champion's League goal ever), the first half of the Chelsea-Leverkusen game was not extremely eventful. A couple of cards were dished out - one to Torres and another to Castro (on Leverkusen). Quite a few shots were taken, but there was change in the score-line by the end of the half. David Luiz was booked in the 59th minute, and Daniel Sturridge took a beautiful shot that was blocked (somehow) by the goalkeeper, who pushed it past the post. Frank Lampard came on for Meireles in the 63rd, and Anelka came on for Sturridge in the 64th. I noticed at this point that Leverkusen were having quite a lot of trouble working down their left side. They constantly seemed to be trying to work around the Chelsea defenders with tricks, and every time they were unsuccessful. The Chelsea players would then pounce on the ball and start counter-attacks, bringing a few players forward. David Luiz ended up making a beautiful run, all the way up to the opposing side's 18-yard box, before passing it off to Mata on the wing. Mata passed it back to Torres, who sought out Luiz. Luiz took a beautiful one-timer that curled inside the far post. Great assist by Torres, and great shot by Luiz to make the score 1-0 for Chelsea in the 67th minute. Chelsea were controlling the game at this point, and substituted David Luiz with Alex, who is happy to see some playing time. In the 93rd minute, Torres made an excellent run down the left wing. When nearing the post, he declined the option to shoot, and instead made an extremely unselfish square pass to Mata, who was waiting at the edge of the 18-yard box. Mata one-timed his shot past Leno, the opposing keeper, to make the score 2-0 at the end of the match. His goal was the last kick of the game.
FINAL SCORE: Chelsea 2-0 Bayer Leverkusen
MATCH STATISTICS:
Chelsea Bayer Leverkusen
Ball Possession (%) 59 41
Shots (on target) 22(12) 11(2)
Corners 6 2
Crosses 33 10
Fouls Committed 17 24
Yellow Cards 2 3
Red Cards 0 0
Offsides 2 1
OTHER FIXTURES:
Group E (Chelsea's group):
Genk 0-0 Valencia
Group F:
Marseille 1-0 Olympiacos
Arsenal 1-1 Borussia Dortmund
Group G:
Porto 2-1 Shaktar Donetsk
APOEL 2-1 Zenit St. Petersburg
Group H:
AC Milan 2-2 Barcelona
Viktoria Pizen 1-1 BATE
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