Qarabag 2-2 Chelsea: Champions League - as it happened
Key eventsShow key events onlyPlease turn on JavaScript to use this featureThat’s it from me, thanks for reading.ShareEnzo Maresca has been speaking: “Today, we started the right way, scored the goal but then we conceded two. The first one when they had 10 players. We can avoid both goals. In their box, we need to be more clinical.“The intention was to rest Moises [Caicedo], Enzo [Fernandez], Malo [Gusto] and more players. They are not able to play every three days. The Club World Cup affected a lot. We tried to rotate.”On Lavia’s injury: “It’s a shame for him. He is not able to be fit for a long period, we will see, it is too early to understand what kind of injury. We hope it is not a big injury, I think it is a quad.”He has some serious questions to answer after his team’s wild oscillations in that game. Still, that’s likely a valuable point and total embarrassment was avoided.ShareUpdated at 15.25 ESTHere’s Jacob Steinberg’s match report.ShareFull-time: Qarabag 2-2 ChelseaThe right result, both teams going at it hammer and tongs. Estevao the star for Chelsea, Qarabag were excellent, and remain in the hunt for the knockouts. Chelsea have work to do to reach the top eight… Barcelona next.ShareUpdated at 15.14 EST90+4 min: This is frantic stuff. Garnacho and James both fail to get the ball into the centre. The home fans want the end to come. A draw is a huge result, even if they might have won it through Kashchuk.Share90+3 min: End to end stuff, Garnacho denied by a save from Kochalski, and Qarabag go again, Tosin has to step across to clear the danger. That sends Estavao for one more attack.Share90+1 min: Big noise now. A right old racket. Can Qarabag be suitably inspired? Addai’s ball across and Kashchuk has a chance going begging…oof, he just failed to make the connection.Share90 min: Chelsea pushing on, under a hail of boos from the Baku home crowd. Five minutes added on, Caicedo is booked for dissent in the first few seconds of the addition.Share89 min: Chance opens up for Enzo, but he hits Delap, and the ball runs out. The attempt was disappointing even before it hit Delap.Share88 min: Reece James called into action to avert a Qarabag attack, Addai was in space and the skipper read it well.Share87 min: Gary Naylor get in touch: “I was expecting Liam Delap to be a big influence on this season. Turns out Rory Delap has had more clout!”So does Luke Forrester: “Re: Cafarquliyev: when you do an MBM do you look at the team sheets before the match starts and pick one player to Ctrl + C (or whatever the Mac equivalent is)? I imagine it saves some time.”Yes, with a cheat sheet handy to copy and paste from. Lots of other candidates.Share85 min: Buonanotte has got into decent positions and shoots narrowly wide after space opens up for him. There’s still some juice left in this game.Share84 min: Chelsea piling it on, Buonanotte and Enzo both play key passes, and Delap should have got on the end of that.Share83 min: Sanchez claims the resultant corner to the relief of Garnacho.Share81 min: Estevao, Chelsea’s best attacker on the night, continues to run the Azeri team ragged. They have to hurry away the ball, as does Caicedo when Qarabag mount an attack after Garnacho makes a mess of an attempted flick.Share79 min: Cucurella and Kochalski smash into each other. Just wondering if Gurban Gurbanov is regaled by fans to this song.Share78 min: Lovely skill from Estevao, full of courage, with a defender trying his best to crop him down, and Enzo is given space to surge on and shoot over the bar.Share77 min: Estevao is the only remaining starter left on from the starting front five. He shows off his skills in winning a corner from which Garnacho is thwarted.Share74 min: Qarabag subs: Dani Bolt is one of the arrivals, another Brazilian, along with Oleksiy Kashchuk, as Zoubir and Cafarquliyev depart. The lattter is a bugger to spell.Share73 min: The points are there to be won and Chelsea are pushing for them. Liam Delap is doing some more exemplary hold-up play. Chelsea are a club for such players.Share71 min: A break in play sees Maresca deliver some touchline advice. Joao Pedro is off, and on comes the mystery that is Buonanotte.Share69 min: Delap makes one of the bulwarking runs that made his reputation at Ipswich, and then fires wide. He reminds of a Paul Mariner, a bustling striker of years gone by. That’s a mark of approval, by the way. The big men are where it’s at.Share67 min: AA BB gets in touch: “IIsee your primal scream reference on 45+2 minutes and now raise you one, that Chelsea are suddenly LOADED up top with those half time switches, and two, that I bet Maresca wishes he could GET (Damien) DUFFY. I needed a crowbar to make all that work tbh but ultimately I feel it was worth it “Everybody is a star in Guardian Football’s MBM community.ShareUpdated at 14.18 EST66 min: Reece James is the beneficiary as Addai is sent down the line and then slips over. This one will feel heavy on the legs on the long flight home.Share64 min: Within seconds, Akhundzade zips in a shot on goal. Perhaps that’s why he’s been brought on.Share63 min: Qarabag have a Baku derby with Neftçi on Sunday, perhaps that’s why those two star men are off. Bayramov and Akhundzade are the players on.Share61 min: Perhaps positive of the bigger Champions League stage is that teams do seem to go for wins, rather than draws. Both going for the points here.Qarabag changes: Leandro Andrade off, the scorer, and Duran goes off, too. Both were excellent. Very strange subs from Gurbanov.Share59 min: It’s Qarabag with the hurried defending now, and Joao Pedro is coming into the game. Medina, though, is a brick wall that Estevao cannot get past. He’s a unit, as they say.Share57 min: Delap sent through, Joao Pedro’s ball, but it’s offside. Kochalski had made the save in any case. Chelsea showing more danger, more impetus. Much much better.ShareUpdated at 14.09 EST57 min: Duran tries to tie Hato in knots again, and this time the Dutchman wins the battle, standing tall. He is only 19.Share55 min: Delap has already looked far better at leading the line, and he sets up Enzo for a shot that’s beaten behind. Kochalski the keeper claims the corner but suddenly Chelsea look like Chelsea.Share54 min: Garnacho has been criticised in his early days with Chelsea but that was better, the direct running and the finishing skills he made his name with. And then seemed to lose for a bit.ShareGoal! Qarabag 2-2 Chelsea (Garnacho 53)Delap plays the ball wide to Garnacho who initially loses the ball, only for him to get it back and smash in with his left.ShareUpdated at 14.03 EST51 min: Some jeers as Enzo plays the ball out of play. It’s not happening for Chelsea. And then Tosin gets caught in possession by Duran, who cannot get away from him but this is poor from Chelsea, inspired by Qarabag.Share49 min: Duran continues his torment of Hato who has must have been a candidate for being subbed.Share47 min: Medina and Estevao clash, and there’s a ruckus. Then Reece James pulls down Medina, and Silva, of Qarabag, is booked for asking for a red card. That challenge would have been illegal in rugby. Oddly desperate.ShareUpdated at 13.57 EST46 min: Three Chelsea changes: Garnacho, Enzo and Delap on, Santos, Gittens and George are off. Maresca means business. Big 45 minutes for Liam Delap.ShareJacob Steinberg is our man in Baku, he’ll be providing the report later.Meanwhile, this is an important story, and needs investigating by the authorities.ShareKari Tulinius gets in touch: “There’s a long way to go, but the mind wanders to embarrassing English defeats in Europe. Arsenal losing to Graham Potter’s Östersunds takes some beating.”Whatever happened to Graham Potter?ShareMatthew Lysaght gets in touch: “I can’t see much of a difference between noted pest Marc Cucurellas challenge and the Luis Diaz version from last night. Same end result - a player subbed off through injury - but this time no yellow or VAR review. I can’t help think that if it was a leading CL team instead of “little old” Qarabag then the consequences may have been different.”It was a bit nasty, yes. Cucurella is a master at looking innocent after such moments.ShareHalf-time: Qarabag 2-1 ChelseaQarabag continue to be the surprise package of the group stage while Chelsea have shown off the issues of playing too many young players together at once. It started badly with Romeo Lavia’s injury, and got worse, even accounting for Estevao’s excellent goal.Share45+3 min: Chelsea end the half on the attack, with Gittens again running into traffic. Qarabag hold firm.ShareUpdated at 13.52 EST45+2 min: That corner is cleared by Kochalski, the Qarabag keeper. Vanishing point?Share45 min: Three minutes added on, which seems skinny considering two injuries, two subs. Gittens and George win a corner.Share44 min: Santos is booked, which won’t help in midfield. Duran, a Colombian, has been electric. He once played for Lusitania FC in Portugal, and may well sink Chelsea tonight.Share43 min: The stadium is making plenty of noise now. Chelsea booed on each touch. They need to keep calm, pull themselves together. This is a severe test of the youngsters within this team. Character building perhaps.Share41 min: Justin Kavanagh gets in touch: “Chelsea should get themselves almost over the line at the Tofiq Bahramov Stadium. Some people think it’s all over, already. You finish it, John… “Maresca might need to do an Alf Ramsey team talk at this rate. From promising beginnings, Chelsea have been rotten.Share40 min: Hato has had a nightmare, guilty for both goals. He’s been exposed by his teammates, mind. Chelsea are *so* open.ShareGoal! Qarabag 2-1 Chelsea (Jankovic, 39 pen)A most calm penalty follows a deep breath. Chelsea have themselves to blame.ShareUpdated at 13.28 ESTPenalty to Qarabag!Hato handles it in the box, Duran smashing the ball at his hand from point-blank range.Share36 min: So close for Qarabag again….Cafarquliyev goes on a bustling run from left-back, nobody putting in a tackle, and he sees glory….and misses. Chelsea have gone very milky….Share34 min: Chelsea have not played much in the way of possession football. They try to attack at speed. Gittens finds space and gets his angles all wrong, smashing the ball into the side-netting.Share
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