Chelsea vs PAOK: Blues respond to reality check with another emphatic Europa League victory
Chelsea 4-0 PAOK: There were several changes from the 3-1 defeat against Tottenham but it was the response that Maurizzio Sarri will have been after
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Your support makes all the difference.It may not have been a full Chelsea team, but it was a full-blooded response to their first defeat of the season. Maurizio Sarri’s side responded to the reality check away to Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday by easily beating 10-man PAOK Thessaloniki 4-0 in the Europa League.
The hope is that it shows the Spurs loss hasn’t broken this new team’s previous capacity for easily disposing of lesser opponents, although this match went their way from the off. And while the win might not mean much in the grand scheme of things, it will mean a lot to Callum Hudson-Odoi, who got his first goal on his first start for Chelsea. It also ensured - at 18 years and 22 days old - he was the youngest player to score in the competition since October 2009, when Adem Ljajic netted for Partizan Belgrade against Shakhtar Donetsk at 18 years and two days old. That came in between a fine double for Olivier Giroud, and another strike for Alvaro Morata.
In that, it was a mass confidence-building exercise.
It didn’t take long for the match to be further loaded towards the home side. After just six minutes, right-back Leo Matos played what seemed an innocuous enough pass back to Yevhen Khacheridi, only for the centre-half to stumble under the pressure of Giroud. The French striker nicked the ball away and got past, only for Khacheridi to go to ground and bring Giroud down with him. It was just outside the box, but thereby meant the defender was sent off the pitch. PAOK were down to 10. And effectively out of luck.
There was then even more space for Loftus-Cheek to express himself, and he has almost been using the Europa League as his own personal display case.
The midfielder brought a brilliant save from Alexandros Paschalakis, before Gary Cahill headed narrowly wide from the corner.
Chelsea were just finding their range. On 27 minutes, Pedro fed Giroud, who found the corner of the net from the corner of the 18-yard box with a sharp low finish.
There was better to come, from the team and the striker. Just 10 minutes after that opening goal, Fabregas played an exquisite lofted pass over the top of the PAOK defence, the ball dropping perfectly for Giroud to lift his leg, swivel, and volley it past Paschalakis.
The sizeable Greek travelling support, who had been so entertainingly loud from well before the match started, were now met with a response of ‘you’re not singing any more’.
That wasn’t quite true. PAOK fans didn’t let up, and neither did their team. They didn’t fold despite being a man down and two goals down, and still put it up to Chelsea even with 10 men, since they can still get through this group in second place. That was to their credit.
It was at the same time difficult not to sense some Chelsea players were in that kind of mood were they had the security to try things they wouldn’t, like when Hudson-Odoi hit a brilliant shot off the bar or Davide Zappacosta attempted a scorching volley. The hour-mark then saw Cahill go on a surging run that ended in a backheel, but started a move that saw Hudson-Odoi get that first goal.
The forward so confidently picked the ball up - after yet another assist from Fabregas - to offer a fine low finish.
It was a moment the player had been waiting for, and a moment many in the Stamford Bridge crowd had been waiting for.
If you wanted to be cruel, you could say substitute Morata did something he usually wouldn’t when he scored, but he has already come back to form and his confident header was a reflection of that.
Chelsea will meanwhile hope that, as forgiving as this fixture was for a largely second-string side, it will similarly be a reflection of how routine they’re making wins in this campaign. At the very least, it didn’t take long to get the feeling back. It didn't take long for Hudson-Odoi to get that scoring feeling.
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