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A second-string Chelsea team waltzed their way to an 8-0 landslide victory against Noah at Stamford Bridge, notching up the club’s biggest-ever win in modern-day European competition to retain their spot at the UEFA Conference League summit.
With Chelsea being most people’s tip to win the Conference League, there was always a sense that it wouldn’t take the Blues long to take the lead and it took them 12 minutes when Tosin Adarabioyo headed home Enzo Fernandez’s corner.
Straight from the restart, Noah hit the self-destruct button, or Goncalo Silva certainly did when his slack pass gifted Marc Guiu the ball 18 yards from goal, and like Tosin, he dispatched his first goal for the Blues. Noah simply couldn’t stop conceding goals and Axel Disasi ensured they were three behind inside 20 minutes by powering home from another Fernández corner.
Felix did at least manage to make up for his earlier error, where he missed from three yards. He pounced upon another Silva error to dink home Chelsea’s fourth midway through the first half, but Mykhailo Mudryk quickly stole his thunder by hammering a spectacular shot into the top corner from 20 yards.
There was still time for a sixth before the break too, when Noah were caught on the break and Félix punished them with his second of the evening. For the Armenian side, simply negotiating the first 15 minutes of the second half without conceding was a small win in itself, such was the disaster of the opening 45 minutes.
Things could’ve been a whole lot worse though when Christopher Nkunku tiptoed into the box but blazed a left-footed effort over the crossbar. Nkunku did eventually get his goal a little over 20 minutes from time when after Ognjen Cancarevic denied his initial effort, he sneaked home the rebound from the tightest of angles.
As if that wasn’t bad enough, referee Christian-Petru Ciochirca rubbed salt in the wounds when he harshly awarded Chelsea a penalty after a Yan Brice Eteki and Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall coming-together in the area, but Nkunku duly accepted the gift to power home his second goal of the evening. Needing just one more goal to record their biggest win since 1971, many Chelsea fans in attendance might have expected their second-string heroes to make a bigger play for a ninth goal.
They never got that record-breaking number though, and they were forced to settle for just the eight goals, as the Blues continue to make a mockery of their Conference League opponents.
