With a hop, a skip and a jump, ruthless Chelsea made it four wins on the bounce and two in a row in the Champions League.
Enzo Maresca put out an exceedingly young team, and his youthful Blues did the rest as they ran out 5-1 winners against a torrid Ajax side who appeared destined for a trouncing as soon as Marc Guiu made it 1-0 less than 30 seconds after Kenneth Taylor’s 17th-minute red card for the visitors.
Moises Caicedo’s deflected effort from range gave Chelsea a 2-0 lead, before three penalties in quick succession — first for Ajax’s Wout Weghorst and then from Enzo Fernandez and Estevao Willian — ensured it was the hosts who headed the dressing room with a handsome 4-1 lead.
Substitute Tyrique George made it five three minutes after the restart and it could, in all honesty, have been more for Chelsea, who were comfortably better than the side fourth in the Dutch league. Ajax had started the day rock-bottom of the 36 teams in the Champions League group phase.
For Chelsea, a second win in a row in the competition saw them take a sizeable step towards qualification for the knockout stages.
Chelsea hit ruthless streak
The rain kept pouring at Stamford Bridge, and Chelsea ensured it kept raining goals.
Not since they went to the London Stadium and hammered downtrodden West Ham 5-1 on the second weekend of the season had Chelsea ran up a scoreline this impressive, and though Ajax helped them out by going down to ten men, conceding two penalties and offering some kind deflections, the Blues never let up all evening.
Chelsea showed a clinical edge at the City Ground on Saturday, comfortably the worse team in the first half but efficient in front of goal after the break.
That same level of finishing — if not a higher level — was was on show at Stamford Bridge as Maresca’s men made it two wins from three in the Champions League group phase.
Youngsters given chance to shine
Maresca made almost wholesale changes from the side that got Ange Postecoglou the sack at Forest on Saturday, making ten changes in total as only Romeo Lavia retained his place in the team.
The starting line-up the Italian put out was the youngest any manager has named in the Champions League this season, and the second-youngest by an English team in the competition’s history, at an average age of just 22 years and 163 days.
Records of this ilk kept tumbling all night as Chelsea relentlessly put their Dutch visitors to the sword.
3 - Chelsea tonight vs Ajax are the first Premier League side to have three different teenage scorers in a match in all competitions since 1992-93. Future. pic.twitter.com/QKK0cERPt7
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) October 22, 2025
With Estevao (18), Guiu (19) and George (19) all scoring, Chelsea became the first team in Champions League history for whom three teenagers had scored in the same match. Their talented youth was on full show.
Estevao even came mightily close to netting a bicycle kick late on.
Marc Guiu takes his chance
With Joao Pedro suspended after his second yellow card against Benfica, it was the obvious choice by Enzo Maresca to select Guiu to lead the line at Stamford Bridge.
Re-called from his Sunderland season-long loan after a mere 25 days back in August, the Spaniard never got a look in either from the start or the bench until the Liverpool game when he came off the bench for the first 16 minutes.
He stretched the Reds’ defence and did the same in the second period when introduced from the bench at half-time at Nottingham Forest on Saturday.
Against Ajax, handed the opportunity to impress from the off, he took full advantage, converting from close range from a Wesley Fofana headed square pass to give Chelsea the lead less than a minute after Ajax captain Kenneth Taylor was sent off for a dangerous foul on Facundo Buonanotte.
Guiu, still only 19, never stopped running in that first half and in scoring, became the Blues’ youngest scorer in Champions League history at 19 years, 291 days, taking the record off Reece James, who was 19 years and 332 days when he scored in the 4-4 with Ajax in November 2019… until 18-year-old Estevao Willian took the record off him 33 minutes later.
Guiu did his case for a start against his former side Sunderland on Saturday no harm.
