Chelsea 5-1 Ajax: First-half salvo sees Blues demolish Dutch giants on landmark UCL appearance | OneFootball

Chelsea marked their 200th Champions League game with a 5-1 thrashing of Ajax when the teams went head-to-head at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday.

Fresh from their 3-0 win over Nottingham Forest at the weekend, Enzo Maresca’s went in search of a fourth straight victory across all competitions.

The game kicked off on a dour note as both sides attempted to gradually feel their way into the game.

Unsurprisingly, Chelsea started to lay a foothold on proceedings and produced the first effort on target of the match through Marc Guiu. The Spaniard raced on to an Enzo Fernández through ball but was denied by an onrushing Remko Pasveer.

Having been on the wrong end of red cards in recent weeks, the hosts saw their visitors reduced to 10 men in the 15th minute when Kenneth Taylor was sent off for a rash challenge on Facundo Buonanotte.

Chelsea wasted no time making their numerical advantage count less than a minute later, thanks to a composed finish from Guiu inside the box to become Chelsea’s youngest-ever Champions League goalscorer at the time.

The Blues’ one-goal lead soon became two with Moises Caicedo registering his fourth strike of the season from outside the box, although he did have some inadvertent help from Josip Sutalo.

Now behind by two goals and missing the services of their skipper, Ajax looked to be chasing a lost cause half an hour into the contest, but managed to drag themselves back into contention 12 minutes from the interval.

Tosin Adarabioyo’s foul on Raul Moro provided Wout Weghorst the chance to open his Champions League account from 12 yards, and the Dutch striker made no mistake to halve the deficit.

That goal stirred belief within the Ajax faithful that their team could still get something from the goal, although a disastrous end to the first half rained on de Godenzonen’s parade.

Weghorst and Youri Baas were penalised for fouls on Fernandez and Estevao, which saw Chelsea presented with a pair of spot kicks six minutes apart.

Tasked with the responsibility of facing Pasveer from 12 yards, Fernandez and Estevao made no mistake with their respective assignments to put Chelsea 4-1 up heading into the interval.

Estevao’s strike saw him usurp Guiu to become Chelsea’s youngest-ever UCL goalscorer.

Buoyed by the possession of a three-goal advantage, Chelsea rang the changes for the start of the season half with Andrey Santos, Trevoh Chalobah and Tyrique George all coming on.

Santos and George wasted no time making an impact as the former assisted the latter to grab Chelsea’s fifth goal of the evening and further put Ajax to the sword.

Chelsea’s hunger to score more goals despite being 5-1 up was evident, but they were unable to add to their tally, thanks in no small part to a couple of decent saves from Pasveer to deny Jamie Bynoe-Gittens and Estevao.

After suffering a 3-1 defeat to Bayern in their Champions League opener, Chelsea have now won a second consecutive European outing to keep the juggernaut rolling ahead of Saturday’s home encounter against Sunderland.