Chelsea's young side edged past Astana 3-1 to continue their recent winning run and all but confirm a place in the Conference League last 16.
As expected, Chelsea manager Enzo Maresca made 10 changes to the side that won 4-3 at Tottenham to move into second place in the Premier League on Sunday, with a mix of experienced players and young hopefuls looking to make their mark. . In fact, this was the first time in the club's history that they had fielded four teenagers in a European competition.
One such player was Marc Guiu, 18, who opened the scoring after just 14 minutes after some skill down the right to get past his marker, before heading into the box and defeating Mukhammedzhan Seysen at his nearby post.
The Spain U19 international thought he had added a second four minutes later after impressive play from Pedro Neto, who made his way to the right backline before pulling back a cross for Guiu to to tie the ball home from close range – however, the goal was credited to the unfortunate Astana defender Aleksandr Marochkin.
Six minutes before half-time, the game was not over as a contest when the unmarked Renato Veiga rose higher to head home Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's corner from the right until the 16-hour trip, 3,479 to make a thousand valuable.
Astana hit back just before the interval when Marin Tomasov worked some space in a crowded box, before the skipper headed home past a diving Filip Jorgensen and in off the post.
But the Blues did a professional job of stopping Astana's second-half comeback as Maresca's side won their sixth game in a row for the first time since 2022, extending their unbeaten run to nine games in every contest in the process, and left atop the Conference League with a 100 percent record.
What the managers said…
Chelsea boss Enzo Maresca:
“I was really impressed with all of them (debutants). The ones who started – Tyrique, Sam and Josh – they've all done really well. So happy for them. Also those who came on in the second half .So I'm happy for them.
“We knew it would be cold. We tried to adapt. The players did well with the weather, the long flight yesterday and also maybe the pitch was not ideal. But I am very happy for the players.
“We will land at around six o'clock (in the morning) UK time, but we are going to try to prepare for the game in the best way we can as we have always done this season.”
