Chelsea travel to Israel for tonights’s return fixture against Maccabi Tel Aviv having won the first meeting on September 16th at Stamford Bridge by a convincing 4-0 scoreline. Since then however the Blues have been on a pretty dismal run of form.
Chelsea currently sit in 2nd place in Group G, 3 points behind leaders Porto and 1 point ahead of Dynamo Kyiv in 3rd spot. So the final positions could well come down to the final games of the group. Unfortunately for the Blues their record in away games in the Champions League is less than stellar as they have lost 3 games, drawn 5 games and won a mere 2 games. In those 10 games they have only managed to score more than 1 goal once which is a pretty weak return for a side with such an embarrassment of attacking riches like Diego Costa, Cesc Fabregas, Willian, Eden Hazard etc.
Chelsea must be feeling fairly confident of extending their current winning streak to 2 games after beating Norwich City on the weekend in the Premier League as Maccabi Tel Aviv have only won one of their past 10 Champions League matches and in those matches they have had great difficulty scoring as they have only bulged the net in a mere four of those matches and are tied for the fewest goals scored in the Champions League this campaign and also they are tied for conceding the most with 11 goals.
There are 4 teams still to win a game in the Champions League so far this season and not surprisingly along with Astana, Borussia Mönchengladbach and Lyon, Maccabi Tel Aviv are the fourth team.
Willian has been a revelation for the Blues this season as he has scored 5 goals from free kicks in all competitions and 3 of his 4 attempts in the Champions League have found the back of the net making him the man Chelsea turn to now when they have a free kick in a threatening area.
It will be interesting to see what kind of a line-up Jose Mourinho chooses to face Maccabi Tel Aviv but we expect a tight Chelsea victory as they will want to qualify for the knockout phase of the competition as easily as possible and not have to rely on other clubs to do them favours in the last round of matches.