Chelsea star hailed for “excellent evening” as he takes on world’s two best wingers in one week | OneFootball

Chelsea’s official site are enjoying the Blues’ high profile Champions League win over Barcelona from Tuesday night.

Cucurella hailed for superb impact

Marc Cucurella celebrates with this UEFA man of the match award. (Photo by Chris Lee/Chelsea FC)

Before turning their attention to Sunday’s massive clash with Arsenal, they’re poring over the debris of our pounding of the Catalans, and they picked out one Blue for special praise.

Marc Cucurella was awarded UEFA’s player of the match award for his showing against his old team, and the site gushed over his numbers:

“The Spaniard had an excellent evening coming up against his compatriot Lamine Yamal,” they write.

“His desire to engage in one-on-one duels unsettled the talented young winger, while he added his usual dynamism to our attack, combining neatly with Fernandez and Garnarcho down our left. One such link-up led to Araujo’s foul on Cucurella that earned an obvious yellow, our full-back too quick and clever for the Barca captain.”

They also note his excellent stats from the game – a game high 3 tackles and a game high 97 touches. His 12 passes into the final third were the most of anyone on the pitch. He’s not a perfect player, but he does tend to step up in the big games, and they don’t come any bigger than this for the Catalan.

Let’s hope he saved some energy for this weekend – fresh from pocketing Lamine Yamal, he now has to do the same with Bukayo Saka.

In other news…

Champions League gameweek 5 is over, and Chelsea are locked into good position in 7th, with the chance to really kick things up a gear with a win over Atalanta next time out.

Chelsea are still being linked with top young talents, and Jeremy Jacquet from Rennes is just the latest name to come up.