ZAKH TO THE FUTURE Astana 1 Chelsea 3: Marc Guiu scores twice past keeper wearing a BEANIE as young Blues win in crazy -14C conditions
YOU can question why Chelsea were playing over 3,000 miles from home - but the bigger farce is the fact they are in the Conference League at all.
Posted Friday, December 13, 2024 by Thesun.co.uk
The travel for their trip to the outer reaches of Kazakhstan, where it was -14C when Enzo Maresca's men landed, was always going to be a bigger concern than the Astana side waiting there for them.
Chelsea extended their perfect Conference League run at Astana
This latest Conference League encounter brought three goals, five debuts and a sixth win on the bounce for the Blues - taking them into the Last 16 after Christmas.
All very good, all very cheery - all rather pointless at this stage of the competition.
Maresca insists he will only ever focus on the next step of the competition, but if they are not in Wroclaw for May's final something will have gone horribly wrong.
Chelsea sit top of the group stage, having won five from five, scoring 21 goals and conceding just four.
After the ordeal of their eight-hour flight, skirting between two warzones on the way, the Blues' youngsters showed fine discipline in Almaty.
Maresca had told his Chelsea squad to try and remain on English time during their travels.
And for the most part they made this look like an afternoon stroll on a heavy surface cleared of snow by undersoil heating.
Pedro Neto's punishment for picking up a suspension for Sunday's meeting with Brentford was a seat on the flight east.
The winger was the only player who started at Tottenham to make the journey, but made a real difference.
After seeing an early effort denied by Astana's beanie-wearing keeper Mukhammedzhan Seysen, Neto set up the first two goals for Marc Guiu.
The opener, though, was all to do with the Spaniard.
The former Barcelona man collected the ball wide right and strode past the Astana defence like they were training mannequins before finishing at the near post.
Having shown his pace and power, the second was pure instinct - given Guiu could hardly have known what was going in.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall fed Neto out wide, with his cross finding the back of the net off the side of Guiu's torso.
Having raced into a two-goal lead, Chelsea eased off until, 20 minutes later, Renato Veiga added a third.
The Portuguese was left free in the Astana box to rise and nod in a Dewsbury-Hall corner.
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