Match Report: Chelsea limp to 2-1 cup win over Lincoln City | OneFootball

Chelsea managed a 2-1 win over Lincoln City in the Carabao Cup last night to help restore a shred of confidence after a damaging week.

The game was not pretty, by any stretch of the imagination. It was one to get out of the way, rather than one to relish.

The disappointments began long before kick off. The one point of interest in these cup ties is usually getting to see some young academy players and talents from the squad who aren’t yet first team players. But Josh Acheampong was ruled out with flu, Estevao Willian wasn’t selected, and Enzo Maresca didn’t actually pick a young midfielder to partner Andrey Santos, as we had predicted.

To make things worse, the Blues only found out that Marc Guiu was eligible to play the game a few hours before kick off, too late to get him up to Lincolnshire to start the game.

The fact that Maresca ended up picking a very strong team might have led one to expect a dominant performance. But that wasn’t the case. In the first half the Blues were really poor, despite the strength of their side. They were timid on the ball and continually lost their duels against a super motived home team.

The goal they conceded was pure arrogance – Enzo Fernandez tried a lazy cross-field pass he would never have dared attempt in the Premier League. It was cut out before it reached Trevoh Chalobah, and Chelsea were punished right away.

After the game, manager Maresca admitted that he had been angry at half time, and that paid off. Chelsea came out strongly in the second period, and Tyrique George’s strike to equalise seemed a direct consequence, as all the team’s frustration came out in one sweet contact.

He lashed the ball on the half volley from the edge of the box, a superb strike to level the score. Before long it was 2-1 to the Blues, with George turning provider. His neat one two with Facundo Buonanotte allowed the Argentine to score his first goal for Chelsea.

After that it was a bit of a dead game, with the home team putting the worryingly flappy Filip Jorgensen under pressure a few times, but otherwise unable to hurt a settled Chelsea. We will lose if we play like this on Saturday against Brighton, but it was enough to get us into the next round of the cup, and that’s all that was needed.

MOTM – Andrey Santos

Analysis

Alejandro Garnacho in action against Lincoln. (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)

The players who needed to impress tonight didn’t get the job done – Alejandro Garnacho was poor on his first start for the club, and Jamie Gittens continues to struggle, even against lower league opposition.

Andrey Santos did at least remind everyone of what he can do. We would like to see him start against Brighton this weekend, with Cole Palmer out. Enzo can be moved into a more attacking role, with Santos and Moises Caicedo creating a formidable double pivot behind him.

There’s only so much you can glean from a game like this, and even a heavy win wouldn’t have made us much more confident ahead of this weekend.

Teams

Lincoln City

Substitutes

Chelsea

Substitutes

Stats

Quote of the game

“Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely” – Enzo Maresca’s response when asked if he had been angry at half time.