Chelsea found CSKA Moscow’s goalkeeper in fine form as they succumb to opening fixture defeat at Cobham.
Chelsea will wondering how they didn’t at least draw their opening NextGen fixture after losing to CSKA Moscow in a game they dominated. With a strong team out on show including many of HITC’s tipped stars as well as Thorgan Hazard, younger brother of Eden, Chelsea dominated for large periods of the game.
But CSKA’s high pressing game began to tell and off the back of an opening round win against Molde the Russians were in a confident mood. CSKA took their chances well during a rare spell of dominance, bagging 2 goals before the break courtesy of Gela Zaseev strong long range finish and the impressive Nikolay Dergachev headed home past the helpless Mitch Beeney to give CSKA the half-time lead.
Despite impressive performances from Nathaniel Chalobah, substitute Jeremie Boga and Lucas Piazon the star of the match was CSKA’s goalkeeper Sengey Revyakin who made a string of important and world-class saves in the closing stages to deny Chelsea an opening victory.
After chances galore in the second half Chelsea were in the end found wanting at the Cobham Training Centre going down to a 1-2 defeat at fulltime.
Chelsea went in to the game full of confidence, and rightly so being last season’s FA Youth Cup winners but have learnt a harsh lesson about taking chances against a classy looking outfit in CSKA Moscow who now top Group 3. Chelsea now have to gain results against Group favourites Ajax, Norwegian outfit Molde and travel to Russia aiming for a result if they are to qualify for the next stage, but no need to panic just yet as despite the result Chelsea looked impressive, just lacking that cutting edge in front of a fine goalkeeping display.
Substitute Jordan Houghton was disappointed with the result….
Good to get on for the last 15/20 in the U19 @NextGenSeries game. Disappointing result though to lose 2-1!
In the other game from last night tournament darkhorses Athletic Bilbao, who have a history of great youth teams, thrashed Olympiakos 4-0 in Spain. Three of the team that played in that game Kepa, Markel Exteberria and Aitor Seguin have also been called up to the Europa League tie against HJK Helsinki after clearly impressing.
Arsenal are in this group and they get their campaign under way tonight against Marseille with a preview coming later, whilst other games include Aston Villa’s second fixture versus PSV Eindhoven where they will attempt to overcome their opening loss to Sporting. Juventus take on Fenerbahce in tonight’s other fixture whilst Manchester City get their campaign under way tomorrow against Paris Saint Germain.
image: © Jason Bagley
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