Chelsea 1 Vidi 0: Alvaro Morata breaks goal drought as Blues labour to Europa League victory

1/33
Vaishali Bhardwaj4 October 2018

Alvaro Morata scored his first goal since August to fire Chelsea to a narrow win over MOL Vidi in the Europa League on Thursday night.

The striker came into the clash against the Hungarian champions with only one goal to his name this season but, after missing a glorious opportunity to score in the first half, the 25-year-old made amends with his cool finish in the 70th minute.

It proved to be the only goal of the game at Stamford Bridge and keeps Chelsea's unbeaten start to the season intact.

Maurizio Sarri opted to make eight changes for the visit of MOL Vidi, with Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Morata both being handed the chance to impress the Italian.

Morata gets just his second goal of the season.
AFP/Getty Images

Loftus-Cheek, who prior to this game had only made two substitute appearances, indeed impressed in midfield with his driving and powerful runs forward as MOL Vidi enjoyed a positive start to the game.

Chelsea slowly but surely took control of proceedings, however, with Emerson Palmieri denied the opener by a crucial clearance by Paulo Vinicius before Willian drove wide a minute later.

The best chance of the first half, though, fell to Morata who received the ball from Pedro but somehow contrived to fire wide much to the dismay of Chelsea fans and fellow striker Olivier Giroud, who had a mystified look on his face moments after the Spaniard missed.

It was proving to be a frustrating night for Morata, who came into the match with just four goals to his name in 2018 – one this season.

But his and Chelsea's frustrations continued when Loftus-Cheek went down in the area under pressure from Vinicius but no penalty was given.

Loftus-Cheek thought he had won a penalty for his side.
AFP/Getty Images

Down the other end of the pitch just minutes later, Andreas Christensen and Kepa Arrizabalaga had to combine to deny Nego before Boban Nikolov appealed for a spot-kick after a coming together with Gary Cahill but failed to win a penalty.

The second half began with the same high-tempo that had been seen in the first - with Kepa needing to dive down to deny Nego's low effort moments after the re-start.

And with the score still goalless approaching the hour mark, Sarri turned to his star man Eden Hazard who came on to huge cheers from the home fans as he replaced Pedro while the Chelsea manager also sent on Ross Barkley for Loftus-Cheek.

Barkley was immediately involved in the action after forcing goalkeeper Tomas Tujvel into a save from his long-range shot.

But while the midfielder looked sharp, it would be Morata who would score the opener for the hosts following a lovely ball into the box from Fabregas.

Willian headed it into the path of the Spain international, who delivered a fine finish from close range to hand Chelsea the opener.

Barkley could have made it 2-0 but hit the bar with his header but Morata's strike was enough to seal a narrow victory for the home side, who now have two wins from two in the Europa League.

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in