Chelsea beat Gent 4-2 to begin their Europa Conference League group-stage account with three points at Stamford Bridge.
Goals from Renato Veiga and Pedro Neto had the Blues 2-0 up before Tsuyoshi Watanabe headed in to make things interesting on 49 minutes.
Enzo Maresca’s side regrouped, though, with Christopher Nkunku and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall adding goals three and four.
Omri Gandelman scored a second for Gent in the 90th minute, but Chelsea were already home and hosed.
Dom Smith was at Stamford Bridge to rate the Chelsea players’ performances…
Filip Jorgensen 6
Beaten by a fine header. Everything else he had to do was routine.
Axel Disasi 7
A lovely raking ball assisted Neto after the break. Played well at right-back.
Tosin Adarabioyo 6
Strong in the air and positive with his choices of pass. Slowly growing into life at Stamford Bridge.
Benoit Badiashile 5
Caught on his heels a couple of times. Composure on the ball better than his defending.
Renato Veiga 7
Netted his first goal for the Blues. Besides one or two lapses in concentration, delivered a positive attacking display.
Misplaced passes and one very poor effort on goal made this an evening to forget for the young Italian. A talented player who needs more game time in this competition.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall 7
Lively all night. Scored the fourth and could have added a fifth soon after. Created the opening goal.
Pedro Neto 7
Netted a thumping volley and that raised his level for the final half an hour. Good performance.
Joao Felix 6
Not the catalyst in Chelsea’s attack this time, but always offered himself and had a few nice forays forward.
End product is still his biggest issue, but assisted the opening goal and demonstrated his pace by constantly trying to beat full-back Hugo Gambor - and succeeding.
Christopher Nkunku 6
A bit of a peripheral figure, often isolated from the rest of the team. But took his goal confidently.
Subs:
Marc Guiu (Nkunku, 80’) N/A
Tyrique George (Neto, 80’) N/A
Not used: Sanchez, Bergstrom, Cucurella, Colwill, Fernandez, Madueke, Caicedo, Dyer
