- Chelsea, who defends the title, will seek to put the tie in London on track
Chelsea , current European champion and recently crowned king of the Club World Cup for the first time in its history by beating Palmeiras in Brazil (2-1) in the final, do not want surprises against Lille and will seek, in front of their audience, to leave The round of 16 tie of the Champions League is on track to calmly face the second leg.read also
Azpilicueta, OK; Mount, KO
With the good news of the return of César Azpilicueta , absent in last Saturday’s victory (0-1) at Selhurst Park, but without Mason Mount , ‘blue’ top scorer in the Premier League with seven goals, Thomas Tuchel ‘s men receive the champion of France with the aim of extending his streak of consecutive winning games to six -two in the Premier League, the one in the FA Cup against modest Plymouth Argyle and the two in the Club World Cup- in all competitions.
For this, the German coach hopes to have the creative contribution of a Romelu Lukaku who, after having been more than a month without seeing the door, recovered sensations in the United Arab Emirates scoring two goals against the local Al-Hilal and Palmeiras.
Two goals that do not hide the poor performance that the Belgian is having in his return to Chelsea , a club to which he had previously belonged between 2011 and 2014 and that last summer paid 113 million euros for his transfer.
Lukaku landed in London to make up for the lack of goals from a team that had the German Timo Werner as the top offensive reference but, for the moment, the 10 goals he has accumulated at this point in the season are far from the 34 he scored in his first year as an Inter player or the 30 he scored last season, in which he was chosen as the best player in Serie A.
‘Les dogues’ are eleventh
In front will be a team that bears little or no resemblance to the one that beat the almighty Paris Saint-Germain against all odds last year in Ligue 1. Mainly because its main architect and architect, Christophe Galtier , left for Nice once the contract was confirmed . ‘sorpasso’ the French giant and because the casualties of Soumaré (Leicester City), goalkeeper Maignan (Milan) and Luiz Araújo (Atlanta United) in the summer and those of Ikoné (Fiorentina) and Reinildo ( Atlético de Madrid ) during the winter market have considerably diminished the potential of a Lille that he now directs Jocelyn Gourvennec , formerly of Guingamp , and who is eleventh in the French domestic championship.
As if that were not enough, the Portuguese Renato Sanches has been dragging groin problems and will be in doubt until the last minute at ‘les dogues’.
Likely lineups:
- Chelsea : Mendy; Thiago Silva, Rüdiger, Christensen; Azpilicueta, Jorginho, Kanté, Alonso; Ziyech, Pulisic and Lukaku
- Lille : Garden; Celik, Fonte, Botman, Djaló; Renato Sanches or Gudmundsson, Xeka, André, Bamba; David and Burak Yilmaz
- Referee : Jesus Gil Manzano (ESP)
- Stadium : Stamford Bridge, 9:00 p.m. (Movistar Champions League)