“Far from a walk over” – Former Blue concerned about ‘quality of the finishing’ from Chelsea’s CWC opponents

 

Chelsea finally found out who they would have to beat to reach the final of the Club World Cup this week, and it’s far from an easy fixture. The Blues will face Saudi side Al-Hilal after they came from a goal down to win their quarter final match 6-1 earlier this week, setting up a semi final affair with the Champions of Europe.

They will be totally up for this game make no mistake about it, and Chelsea will have to be at their very best to go through here. It was the finishing and attacking power of the Saudi pro league side that concerned Chelsea fans, including former player Pat Nevin, who was impressed by the quality of finishing they showed.

The Chelsea hero has been writing in his column today on the Chelsea website , and he admits that our opponents on Wednesday night will be far from a walk over.

“Tomorrow we play in the semi-final of the Club World Cup and yes, that could go to penalty kicks too,” Nevin said. “Anyone who thinks that is very unlikely, I urge you to have a look at the quality of the finishing from Al Hilal when playing against Al Jazira in the quarter-final. This is far from a walkover into the final at the weekend, so maybe the likes of Jorginho will be expected to strut his stuff from 12 yards, if not tomorrow then maybe on Saturday in the next game.

“Al Hilal did score six goals but as mentioned before, it was the quality and the speed of the play leading up to the goals that impressed. I hope they play in the same open, cavalier style against us, as that would be much fairer for our strikers who are suffering from being suffocated by numbers every week at home.

“Romelu was surrounded by two, sometimes three defenders again at the weekend and struggled to find space while trying to shake them off. It is no surprise so many coaches, including Thomas Tuchel, have been putting so much emphasis on late runners who are harder to mark, but it is the strikers who suffer.

“Maybe the strikers should just concentrate on taking penalties. At least they don’t get marked when they are standing on the spot!”