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Both French hosts Lille and their London opposites Chelsea go into this Champions League match at Stade Pierre Mauroy in search of their first win in the European competition this season.
The hosts for this match travelled to Holland as they faced Ajax at the Johan Cruijff ArenA with the French side falling to a 3-0 defeat.
While the Blues were stunned as they lost 1-0 at home to Valencia which meant that the Premier League side lost at home in the Champions League for the first time since March 2016.
As far as Les Dogues are concerned they have made a decent start to the 2019-2020 Ligue 1 season as they sit fourth in the league, four points off of leaders Paris Saint Germain. This start of the season run includes an impressive win over high flying Angers as they beat them 2-1.
Frank Lampard has currently had a mixed bag of results since taking over as boss at Stamford Bridge, after seven games in the league Chelsea have managed to go up to seventh. During this time they are joint on points with Tottenham, Bournemouth and Crystal Palace, however, up until their last two matches the Blues had failed to win at home but they have since put that behind them.
Lille go into this match remaining unbeaten at the Stade Pierre Mauroy in the last eight, they’re also unbeaten since the 3-0 loss to Ajax in the first round of the Champions League.
What the Managers had to say:
Christophe Galtier believes in his players:
“I’m convinced we can play, create offensive situations and my young team can step up physically and that’s how I have prepared them to play.
“Let’s play the way we know-how, with young players who are physically ready and technically very good. We have to give it 100 per cent from the first to the 90th minute.
“We won’t be impressed by our opponents (and) the championship they’re involved in, this won’t stop us from playing our game. We have our own experience and we should play with our own strengths and that’s what we will do.”
Frank Lampard delivered a message to his player’s ahead of the group stage tie:
“We have to be honest, I thought Valencia wasn’t the worst game for us. We played ok and should have got a result. It was a harsh lesson in switching off for a second and losing a match at this level.
“I think that idea ramps up even more when you travel in the Champions League and play away from home at stadiums like this against top European teams.
“Lille have a lot of threats to us, particularly in attacking areas where they have a lot of speed and quality. It’s not the be all and end all, as in there are four more games after this.”
Head to Head
Lille Win- 1
Draws- 0
Chelsea Wins- 1
Team News
The hosts will go into this game with the unknown certainty of whether Timothy Weah will be able to make a recovery in time after spending some time out on the sidelines due to a hamstring tear.
Lampard has great news going into this game as N’Golo Kante, Kurt Zouma and Olivier Giroud have all been involved in training ahead of their trip to France, however, Antonio Rudiger, Ruben Loftus-Cheek and Emerson Palmieri all have zero chance of featuring for the Blues as they head to the North of France.
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