Europa League: Chelsea halfway to Amsterdam

Chelsea took a giant leap towards the Europa League final last night after a late David Luiz free kick sealed a 2-1 win at Basel. After running round my front room in celebration, I sat down to reflect how the game went and what we need to do to complete the job at home next week.

First of all, I have to say I really liked the team that Benitez picked. He’s done plenty of things that have rubbed me up the wrong way during his tenure, but I was quite pleased when I saw the team sheet.

As seen over their two leg quarter-final with Tottenham, Basel’s main strength is their ability to counter-attack and use the pace that they possess out wide through Stocker and Salah. Benitez counteracted this by deploying Ramires and Victor Moses on our flanks to give more protection to the full-backs, and some extra pace of our own on the counter attack. With Eden Hazard starting as the number 10, we had a very hard working and mobile trio playing behind Fernando Torres.

Effectively, we were playing them at their own game. Basel were allowed to have possession in the midfield area whilst we kept a very structured shape and waited for an opportunity to break. David Luiz stepped into midfield to play the holding role, freeing up Super Frank to push forward when we attacked. It was a well balanced side that stifled Basel and looked very dangerous on the counter.

The first 70 odd minutes went very much to plan. The only gripe was that we hadn’t further enhanced our 1-0 lead. Aside from Moses’s early goal, Lampard, Ramires, Hazard and Torres all had good opportunities to grab another, but finished poorly or were met by some good goalkeeping.

As the game went on, we started to sit deeper and allowed Basel to get in between the lines to attack the back four. The pressure grew as the home side searched for an equaliser, and eventually it came in the 87th minute. Mind you, it took an absolutely ridiculous decision by the referee to provide it. Azpilicueta was punished for a ‘challenge’ that didn’t even remotely look like a foul. Schar converted the penalty and it was 1-1.

Not only was I gutted that we were now drawing a game that we should have finished off well before now, but I feared Basel would have all the momentum and maybe snatch a winner. To my relief, it was Chelsea that seemed to spark into life after the penalty. Oscar and John Terry somehow managed to miss glorious opportunities to win it before Luiz finally did with the last kick of the game. Job done, eventually.

In the second leg I’d like to see more of the same. Basel will have to score at least twice and win to have any chance of getting through. So there’s no need for us to go gung-ho. Hopefully, we’ll see a similar line-up with plenty of mobility and work rate. Allow them to have the ball in the midfield area and hit them on the break when they push forward.

We should have more than enough about us to see the job through, as long as we apply ourselves as we did for the majority of last night’s game.

Back-to-back European finals await. Amsterdam, we are coming!