FULL TIME: Chelsea 2-1 Dynamo Kyiv
And that’s that! What a strange game. Kyiv were worth a draw when they equalised on 78 minutes, but Willian and Eden Hazard turned on the style afterwards to such an extent that Chelsea are deserved winners. What a final 12-minute spell! A dozen minutes that could change the direction of Chelsea’s season - and Jose Mourinho’s career.
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90 min +1: Willian is hooked, so he can receive the standing ovation he’s earned. He’s been utterly magnificent this evening, and Stamford Bridge makes sure he knows it. Cahill comes on in his wake.
90 min: Willian reaches the byline on the left, and dribbles into the area. He can’t find anyone with his cutback. There will be two added minutes. And there’s a strange sense that both teams will be quite happy to hear the whistle now. Chelsea have blown Kyiv away in the last ten minutes!
89 min: Hazard goes scampering into acres down the left, Khacheridi having been caught in possession in the centre circle. He slaps the ball into the side netting. Slightly greedy, but he’s earned the right to shoot.
87 min: Costa earns a corner down the left. They tap it around near the flag. The result’s everything tonight.
85 min: It’s almost as though Hazard is trying to prove a point. More jigging around down the left, and another free kick is won, this time from a clumsy Yarmolenko. The set piece comes to naught. But Chelsea have rediscovered their old selves since Hazard was thrown on.
84 min: Hazard, fresh and full of vim, dances past three men down the left and whistles a ball through the six-yard area. Diego Costa is so close to rushing in to meet it for a simple tap-in, but a deflection takes the ball away from him. Ramires tries to recycle the ball from the other wing, but Kyiv hack clear.
GOAL! Chelsea 2-1 Dynamo Kyiv (Willian 83)
... snaps a stunning free kick over the wall and into the top-left corner! A wonder strike, full of whip and dip! Stamford Bridge erupts in relief! What a moment for Willian. And for Jose Mourinho, perhaps.
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82 min: Hazard panics Rybalka into a rash challenge as he twinkles down the inside-left channel. A free kick, 25 yards out. Willian stands over it. And ...
81 min: Yarmolenko goes down awhile, eating up a little of the clock after his ankle was clipped by Baba Rahman. “Dynamo wholeheartedly deserve that,” writes Chelsea fan Dante Danger, “but jeez, Begovic was nowhere... This Chelsea team can’t close out a game.”
79 min: A grim-faced Mourinho responds immediately by throwing on Hazard and Pedro in place of Fabregas and Oscar.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-1 Dynamo Kyiv (Dragovic 78)
The ball’s hit deep from the right. Begovic comes out and flaps. The ball drops to Dragovic, who earns redemption for that first-half own goal by hammering a shot through a thicket of players and into the keeper-free net!
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77 min: Ramires, working at high speed, looks to thread a pass down the inside-left channel to release Fabregas into the box. The pass is too strong, but Fabregas wasn’t responding either. A smattering of discontent from the stands. And that transmits itself down the other end, where Terry and Begovic confuse each other when dealing with a ball down the right. A needless corner. From which ...
75 min: Porto are now beating Maccabi Tel Aviv by three goals to one.
74 min: A free kick for Kyiv down the right. Yarmolenko takes, with the Chelsea box loaded. It’s a fierce curler towards the right-hand post, and Zouma does very well to head out for a corner with Junior Moraes lurking. From the set piece, Vida flicks on towards Junior Moraes at the left-hand post, but the striker can’t connect. Chelsea living very dangerously there.
72 min: Diego Costa is down on the floor, gesticulating at the referee and frowning quite a lot. And he’s got every right, because Buyalskiy has just planted his studs on his thigh. Ouch, ooyah, oof. The striker will be OK, but the Kyiv midfielder is going in the book. Another referee might have flashed red at that.
69 min: Kyiv triangulate down the middle of the park, and suddenly Buyalskiy is tearing through a huge gap in the middle, after a pass that’s opened Chelsea up. Luckily for the home side, Begovic is on the front foot, and strides out of his area to boot clear before the Kyiv man can reach the ball.
67 min: A free kick for Chelsea on the left touchline. They load the Kyiv box. Willian’s whip is glanced on by Terry, and hits Khacheridi on his left shoulder. Chelsea claim a penalty, but not with too much vigour. The resulting corner is a waste of time. But Chelsea are beginning to reassert themselves now, enjoying a larger share of possession.
65 min: Willian turns on the jets to make ground down the inside-right channel. His shot from the corner of the box flies straight across the face of goal. Soon after, Chelsea are coming back at their foes, Fabregas dribbling in the area on the left, then pulling back for Oscar, whose first-time sidefoot towards the top left is parried round the post marvellously by Shovkovskiy. The resulting corner comes to nothing. It’ll be quite surprising if this ends 1-0.
63 min: Yarmolenko, down the right, hits deep for Gonzalez near the left-hand post. Azpilicueta ushers his man away from the ball, which flies harmlessly out of play. Stamford Bridge erupts in a chorus of their Jose Mourinho song. Random, but with feeling.
61 min: This match really could go either way now. Kyiv are right back in it, having carved out a couple of opportunities since the restart. But then Chelsea could so easily have had a couple themselves from close range. Stamford Bridge is hellishly nervous as a result.
59 min: Antunes is quite correctly booked for a cynical lunge on Willan as the winger looks to break into the Kyiv area down the right. Willian’s set piece is curled along the corridor of uncertainty, a brilliant ball across the face of the six-yard box. Zouma sticks a leg out, and somehow guides the ball wide right of the goal. Matic might have gone too early there, as well, so perhaps offside saves Zouma’s blushes. But really, how did that stay out? Willian is a set-piece magician, though.
57 min: Garmash powers down the inside-left channel before cutting inside, riding a couple of half-arsed challenges, then losing control but latching onto a lame attempted clearance by Terry. He shapes to shoot from the edge of the box, but his fellow sub Junior Moraes brushes him away and has a pop himself. Begovic sticks out a strong arm to parry. Gonzalez tries to find the top right with a curler, but that’s no good. Chelsea very close to causing serious problems for themselves there.
56 min: A second change for the visitors, Kravets coming off, Junior Moraes not going his way.
55 min: Chelsea are on the back foot here. Kyiv are whipping balls into their box from either flank, though Terry and Zouma are holding strong in the middle. Porto are now 2-0 up, so their position at the top of the group will be consolidated tonight the way things are going.
53 min: But Kyiv are showing more threat since the restart. A couple of corners down the right, Yarmolenko having caused all sorts of bother. Diego Costa clears the first. The second falls to Gonzalez, on the edge of the box. He shoots through a thicket of players, and claims the ball has hit Ramires on the hand. The referee again makes a fine decision, because there’s no way that’s a penalty kick either.
51 min: Costa, on a baroque meander down the left, dinks a delicious ball into the middle for Willian, who stoops to head home from six yards out. He’s surely scored, cushioning a lovely header back towards the bottom left, but Shovkovskiy sticks out a casual hand, and scoops it off the line. You’ll not see a more insouciant save than that for a while! Chelsea so unlucky not to be two up.
50 min: Some rare space for Yarmolenko down the right. He enters the box, and it’s not clear whether he’s shooting or crossing from a tight angle, but the ball’s deflected off a Chelsea leg, and whistles dangerously close to the top left. It’s only a corner, which is overhit and mopped up by Terry. But a couple of hairy moments for Chelsea at the start of the second half.
48 min: A fairly quiet start to the second half. Willian bursts down the right a couple of times, but can’t get anything going. Then, suddenly, Gonzalez sprays a wonderful ball down the left. Kravets is free and in the Chelsea area! But he dallies, allowing Zouma to stick out a telescopic leg to tackle cleanly. What a brave intervention, because that could so easily have been a penalty kick, and perhaps even a red. But a perfect tackle means there’s no problem.
And we're off again!
Porto are winning in Tel Aviv, so as things stand, they’re top of the group, with Chelsea in second, leapfrogging Kyiv. With a view to changing this state of affairs, the visitors make a substitution: Denys Garmash comes on for Sydorchuk.
Half-time entertainment:
♪♫ ♯ You’ve got to accentuate the positive / Eliminate the negative / Latch on to the affirmative / Don’t mess with Mister In-Between / You’ve got to spread joy up to the maximum / Bring gloom down to the minimum / Have faith or pandemonium / Liable to walk upon the scene ♫ ♭♫
HALF TIME: Chelsea 1-0 Dynamo Kyiv
Suffice to say, Chelsea don’t agree that the Costa incident wasn’t a penalty. As the teams go off for half time, Costa has to be restrained by Matic from instigating a debate with the referee. His captain Terry does that in a more diplomatic style. Chelsea stomp off in a hot funk, but they should be otherwise happy enough: without playing particularly well, they’re ahead, and looking good to turn their Champions League campaign around. Kyiv have offered nothing up front.
45 min +1: In the first of two added minutes, Costa goes on a power romp down the middle and into the Kyiv box. He’s ahead of Dragovic and should slam the ball home, but with Khacheridi on his shoulder, decides to go down for a penalty. The referee’s not having it, and it’s a great decision. On the touchline, Jose Mourinho does his ironic smiling act. But Costa went down far too easily there, with little or no contact having been made.
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45 min: Fabregas has a clank from 25 yards. Nope! It flies wide right, worrying Shovkovskiy not a jot.
44 min: Antunes nearly frees Kravets into the Chelsea box down the left, but Azpilicueta cuts it out. Gonzalez tries to inject new life into the move, but his ball into the area from the same flank is witless and straight through to Begovic.
43 min: The busy Oscar earns a corner down the left. Fabregas takes. Once again, it’s easily dealt with by the opposition. He should let Willian take them again.
41 min: Fabregas dances into space down the left, and reaches the byline. But there’s nobody to find in the middle. Kyiv clear. Chelsea come back at them, Oscar being impressively sent into a pocket of space on the left by a prone Diego Costa, who twists on the turf to make a pass, refusing to give it up. Oscar cuts inside and looks to curl one into the top right, but his shot is high and wide.
40 min: Yarmolenko once again has the option of feeding Vida into acres of space down the right, but for the second time in the match opts to cut inside and waste a fine opportunity to stretch Chelsea. Vida would be within his rights to start a half-time dressing-room barney.
38 min: Kyiv with a free kick deep on the right. Rybalka takes, and aims it towards Vida, level with the left-hand post, ten yards out. Matic sticks out a desperate leg to knock the ball out for a corner. The set piece isn’t very good, but squirts out to Gonzalez, 20 yards from goal. His first-time shot flies 20 yards over the bar.
36 min: Chelsea have their tails up now. Willian goes on another rampaging run down the right. His cutback can’t quite find Diego Costa. Then, seconds later, Fabregas is in space down the right. He curls one into the centre. Diego Costa shapes to Mark Hughes a volley into the net, but the ball’s intercepted and cleared by Dragovic before it reaches the striker. Well, that would have been quite a goal.
GOAL! Chelsea 1-0 Dynamo Kyiv (Dragovic 34 og)
Has Chelsea’s luck changed? Begovic is very close to passing the ball straight to Yarmolenko, but the Kyiv man can’t quite make the intercept. Chelsea flood upfield. Willian bursts into space down the right, and looks for Diego Costa in the middle with a low, hard cross. His ball doesn’t reach the striker, but that’s only because Dragovic dives to head spectacularly into his own net. The crowd burst into an unambiguous chant of Jose Mourinho. Are you listening, Roman?
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32 min: Matic is brought down by Yarmolenko as he goes on a rangy strut down the left. Free kick, and a chance for Chelsea to load the box. Willian stands over it. And his delivery’s usually so good, but this one doesn’t beat the first man. However, he gets the ball back immediately, and sprays a diagonal ball wide right for Azpilicueta. The full back chips the ball into the middle for Oscar, who must head home from six yards. But Khacheridi bothers him enough, and he can’t make a proper connection. The ball pings out to Costa, who knocks it over the bar for three rugby points. Good chances for Oscar and Diego Costa there, both spurned.
29 min: Oscar is sent scampering into space down the left. He pings the ball inside for Costa, to the left of the D. He thinks about taking a shot, but dribbles down the channel instead and wins a corner. Fabregas takes, but it’s straight down Shovkovskiy’s throat.
27 min: Gonzalez is booked for faffing around at a restart in the middle of the park. He looks confused. That’s livened the home fans up again.
26 min: Stamford Bridge has gone fairly quiet right now, with Kyiv beginning to enjoy longer periods of possession. You can tell the home faithful have been stung too many times this season.
24 min: Yarmolenko looks to Cruyff Turn his way past Baba Rahman. He slips on the heavily watered turf, and executes the splits in an accidental fashion. Ooyah, oof, that’s a painful one. He’ll be OK to continue, but only after rolling around wincing for a while.
22 min: Diego Costa makes good down the left, and fires a low cross into the box. There’s nobody there to convert. Then Willian skedaddles down the right, and hits a similar ball in. Nobody there again. Two fine runs, and both deserved better support.
20 min: Space for Vida down the right. He looks for Kravets with a deep looper, but Begovic comes off his line to make a spectacular one-handed catch.
19 min: Fabregas goes on a dribble down the middle of the park, then looks for a one-two on the edge of the box with Diego Costa. The “one” bit is successful. The less said about the “two”, the better. The ball runs through to Shovkovskiy. Chelsea have been on top here, but they’re not particularly fluent in attack so far.
18 min: A Chelsea corner down the right now. Willian curls a fine ball into the area, dropping towards the penalty spot, but only Terry is anywhere near it, anticipating. Buyalskiy gets there first to clear.
16 min: Hearts in Chelsea mouths for a split second as Azpilicueta heads back down the Chelsea right towards Begovic, but doesn’t catch it properly. Gonzalez very nearly zips in to pick up possession, but the keeper is out to the edge of his area to collect. Just in time.
15 min: Kyiv are slowly getting a foothold in the game. They pass it around the middle awhile, without threatening to get into Chelsea’s final third. Yarmolenko has a chance to send Vida free down the right, but opts to cut inside, and the move breaks down.
13 min: Buyalskiy bundles Fabregas to the floor, out on the right. Free kick. Fabregas pitching-wedges it towards the left-hand post, where Matic rises to head across goal. But Chelsea can’t bundle it in, and it wouldn’t have mattered if they had managed it, for Matic had gone too early and was correctly flagged for offside.
12 min: Kravets goes scampering after a long ball down the left. He gets to it first, but just as it looks like he’s going to break in to the box, or at least earn Chelsea a corner, he’s robbed by some brilliant pick-pocket defending from the back-tracking Azpilicueta.
11 min: Now it’s Kyiv’s turn to give up a cheap free kick. Yarmolenko clips Oscar to the floor, and this will be a free kick, 30 yards out, just to the left of centre. Willian, the set-piece specialist, can’t find a Chelsea head with his inswinger. Dragovic heads clear.
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9 min: Up the other end, Kyiv show for the first time, and Ramires panics, shoving over Buyalskiy, 25 yards from goal. The free kick is a tad to the left. Rybalka takes, and batters it straight into the wall.
8 min: The ever-excellent Willian drops deep and plays quarterback. He sprays a brilliant ball out right for Azpilicueta, who exchanges passes with Fabregas before creaming a low cross into the box. On the penalty spot is Oscar, who shapes his body Zidane-style for a first-time batter goalwards. It’s a fine hit, but straight at the keeper.
6 min: Diego Costa draws four white shirts towards him on the left-hand corner of the Dynamo area. He flicks the ball inside for Oscar, who shuttles it further towards the centre for Ramires, who unleashes a first-time pearler goalwards from 25 yards. It’s swerving around, but ends up finding the centre of Shovkovskiy’s chest. The keeper snaffles without fuss. But yes, this is a brisk start from the hosts.
4 min: This is a nice, bright start by Chelsea, who are very much on the front foot. Oscar and Baba Rahman combine nicely down the left, the former feeding the latter. Baba Rahman breaks into the box, but his control is heavy and he runs the ball out of play. A shame for Chelsea, because that was a nice, crisp move, and Kyiv were opened up there.
3 min: Diego Costa powers down the left now, and wins a corner. The set piece causes some pinball bother in the area, the ball pinging out to Ramires, who delivers it back in low and hard. It slams into his own man, Costa, deflects away, and the danger is gone.
2 min: Kravets comes through the back of Zouma. It’s a pointless challenge, because Kyiv are going nowhere, and he’s very fortunate not to pick up an early booking.
And we're off!
The hosts get the ball rolling, and will kick towards the tube station. Sort of. Diego Costa romps down the right wing, but he’s soon knocking Dragovic to the floor in a tussle, and gives away a cheap free kick.
A rare old roar pinging around the walls of Stamford Bridge right now. The Harry J Allstars whipping up a storm as ever. An atmosphere of defiance. Support for Mourinho. Plenty of it. Hearty chants of the manager’s name. The teams take to the pitch, Chelsea wearing their famous blue, Dynamo sporting their equally renowned crisp white. It’s a first-choice aesthetic treat. Mourinho takes his place on the bench, chewing gum, leaning back with his top button open, looking more relaxed than he has for a while. We’ll be off in a minute!
Mourinho speaks! “It’s a very important match. We need a positive result for most reasons. For this competition, because we need a positive result for the competition, and also for the general situation, the bad run of results. So it’s an important match for us. I have 21 fit players, only Ivanovic and Falcao are not ready to play, everybody else is in condition to play, so I have to choose the best team. The day I don’t enjoy a football match, something is going wrong.” All of this said while wearing a fairly grim coupon. BT Sport interviewer Matt Smith treading on eggshells throughout. There was no way he was going to specifically bring up the subject of Eden Hazard. Which is fair enough. You don’t poke a tiger with a pointed stick, even if it does look a bit down in the mouth.
Incidentally, as ever when these Ukrainian giants play, there follows a quick word on what appears to be our free-jazz approach to the spelling of Kiev, Kyiv, Киев, Київ, all that: After Ukraine saw the back of the USSR, they abandoned Russian spellings in favour of Ukrainian ones. This meant that, in English, Lvov became Lviv, Kharkov became Kharkiv and, in the official transliteration of the capital, Kiev became Kyiv (or in good old Cyrillic, Киев became Київ). However, official Guardian style has stuck with the traditional Kiev. Which means that Dynamo Kyiv – the official name of the club – play in Kiev, just as Roma play in Rome and Sevilla come from Seville. No point asking me any further questions, e.g. why?, but I can assure you that, otherwise, I’m here to help.
Dynamo make one change from the team fortunate to escape with a draw in the reverse fixture in Ukraine. Antunes comes in for Danilo Silva at left back. Dynamo don’t really fancy it in England: they’ve played 12 competitive matches here, and lost ten of them, drawing the other two. So it all looks good for the Premier League champions (it bears repeating). Kyiv have been in the goals since the Chelsea visit, mind: a 5-0 cup win over Obolon-Brovar, and a 2-0 victory in the league against Metalist Kharkiv. Not that either opponent is much cop, but then you can only beat what’s put in front of you.
Eden Hazard drops to the bench. A top line, free, gratis, this one’s on Chelsea, for news outlets around the country! That other subject of midweek spin, supposition and chitter-chat, Cesc Fabregas, takes his place in the starting XI. Two other changes from the team that lost to Liverpool last weekend: Abdul Baba Rahman comes in for Gary Cahill, whose place at centre back is taken by the shifted Kurt Zouma, while Nemanja Matic replaces John Obi Mikel.
Tonight's teams
Chelsea: Begovic, Azpilicueta, Zouma, Terry, Baba Raman, Ramires, Matic, Willian, Fabregas, Oscar, Diego Costa.
Subs: Blackman, Hazard, Kenedy, Pedro, Remy, Cahill, Loftus-Cheek.
Dynamo Kyiv: Shovkovskiy, Vida, Khacheridi, Dragovic, Antunes, Sydorchuk, Rybalka, Yarmolenko, Buyalskiy, Gonzalez, Kravets.
Subs: Rybka, Miguel Veloso, Petrovic, Morozyuk, Junior Moraes, Garmash, Gusev.
Referee: Pavel Kralovec (Czech Republic)
🎼 ♫ Ce sont les meilleures équipes! Es sind die allerbesten Mannschaften!! The main event!!! ♪♫
It’s fair to say the pressure’s on Chelsea tonight. As if their struggles in the Premier League aren’t bad enough, they’re currently in a tight Champions League spot too, languishing in Group G behind Porto and tonight’s opponents Dynamo Kyiv. A win tonight isn’t essential, but it would be very handy. However a defeat would dump them in all sorts of bother. If Serhiy Rebrov’s team skip off with the spoils this evening, expect news articles anticipating developments, alongside comment pieces and perhaps a sidebar.
But there’s more than enough misery surrounding Stamford Bridge right now. So let’s not add to it. Let’s instead try to deal in a little hope. Yes, Chelsea are in the middle of an appalling run of form: just the one win in their last eight matches, and that against Tim Sherwood’s Aston Villa. But the bare statistics don’t tell the whole story - wouldn’t sport be soul-crushingly dull if they did?
To accentuate the positive: Chelsea looked good in spells playing with just ten men against West Ham; they were repeatedly denied by in-form Stoke keeper Jack Butland in the League Cup; the result against Liverpool might have been very different if Kurt Zouma had managed to bundle home an early second goal, or had Oscar scored from the halfway line, as he so nearly did; and Chelsea were brilliant in Kiev a couple of weeks ago, Eden Hazard and Willian hitting the woodwork, Cesc Fabregas earning a penalty he didn’t get.
Nobody’s saying Chelsea are playing well right now - that’s three defeats and a draw, and here we are - but it wouldn’t have taken that much for the picture to look quite different. So Chelsea should salvage a little succour from the wreckage. Play tonight like they did in Kiev, and they’ll be winning this match. And a win would change the mood music on the Fulham Broadway considerably. It’s on!
Kick off: 7.45pm in west London, 9.45pm in Kiev.
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