Olivier Giroud overtook Zinedine Zidane’s Champions League goalscoring record with his four against Sevilla as the London based club thrashed Spanish side Sevilla in Spain on Wednesday night.
Chelsea also joined Premier League sides Liverpool and Manchester City in securing a place in the knockout stages of the Champions League with the emphatic win over Sevilla.
Only one English side had beaten Sevilla on their own turf till Olivier Giroud decided to make it his own yard and if Frank Lampard decides to still leave him on the bench after such a class performance, then it’s Chelsea’s loss.
The Frenchman who has been urged to find solutions to his lack of first-team football by France manager Didier Deschamps showed a huge resolve as he hammered 4 past debutant goalkeeper Alfonso Pastor.
The hosts had made eight changes to their squad and rarely threatened Edouard Mendy’s goal.
The Frenchman, Olivier Giroud, who became the first Chelsea player to score four in one game since his manager in 2010, scored a penalty with his final touch of the game, as Chelsea secured top spot in their Champions League group in style.
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Stats and facts from the match (Backed by Opta)
- Chelsea have won four consecutive UEFA Champions League matches for the first time since the 2011-12 campaign, when they went on to win the competition.
- Sevilla were unbeaten in 14 home matches in all European competitions coming into this game (W12 D2), with this their first such defeat since April 2018 vs Bayern Munich.
- Chelsea have won two UEFA Champions League games by at least four goals under Frank Lampard - only under Jose Mourinho do they have more such wins (six).
- In what was Sevilla’s 100th home match in European competition, they lost by a four-goal margin on home soil for the very first time.
- Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud (34 years and 63 days) became the oldest player to a hat-trick in the UEFA Champions League/European Cup since Ferenc Puskás for Real Madrid vs Feyenoord in September 1965 (38 years and 173 days).
Manchester United 1-3 PSG: Neymar scored a brace to dent United’s qualification hopes
Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s team recovered well from Neymar’s sixth-minute opener when Marcus Rashford equalized before half-time to continue his fine goalscoring form against the French champions.
PSG took the lead again in the second half through Marquinhos, and United’s hopes of another equalizer suffered a dent when Fred was shown a red card.
The French champions took complete advantage of their numerical advantage and a third goal looked likely even before Neymar rolled the ball into an unguarded goal in stoppage time.
“Amazing result. To arrive in Old Trafford with the pressure to win is one of the hard challenges in world football. We earned our luck today by hard work, by good mentality. We fought back and it’s not the most easy time for us in the moment. We’re not playing at our highest level but I saw our team fighting, not accepting to lose, and it paid out in the end for a big, big win,” said an impressed Thomas Tunchel at full-time.
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Matchday 6 will see Leipzig host Manchester United, while PSG play host to Istanbul Basaksehir, who are still in with a shot at finishing the group in a Europa League spot if they can muster a win at the Parc des Princes.
Other Wednesday results
Borussia Dortmund 1-1 Lazio
Raphael Guerreiro opened the scoring in the 44th-minute for Dortmund but Lazio came back in the second half when Ciro Immobile equalized from the penalty spot, but a draw was enough for the Germans to clinch a place in the knockout stages of his season’s Champions League.
Lazio needs a draw from their final group game against Club Brugge to qualify for the next round, and they can also clinch the top spot in various scenarios that involve Dortmund failing to win at Zenit.
