Now World ViewReece James sends Chelsea message as Trevoh Chalobah captures brilliant Cole Palmer moment
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Reece James has heaped praise on his teammates following Chelsea’s 2-1 win over Copenhagen in the first leg of their UEFA Conference League round of 16 tie. The 25-year-old defender fired the Blues to victory at the Parken Stadium on Thursday night, breaking the deadlock shortly after half-time.
Enzo Fernandez later doubled Chelsea's lead before Gabriel Pereira pulled one back for the Danish outfit. Enzo Maresca’s side will host Copenhagen at Stamford Bridge for the second leg next week.
Shortly after the game, James marked the occasion with a celebratory post on Instagram, which eclipsed 50,000 likes in an hour. The Blues captain, who uploaded a picture of himself celebrating his goal, wrote: “Huge team performance tonight, thanks to the travelling fans.”
Marc Cucurella, Pedro Neto and Josh Acheampong showed their support for James in the comment section, while Declan Rice dropped a ‘like’. Trevoh Chalobah also had something to get off his chest after helping Chelsea claim their first away win since December.
The 25-year-old defender, who the Blues recalled from loan in the January transfer window, also marked the landmark victory with a celebratory Instagram post. Captioning a picture of Cole Palmer holding a plastic cup of beer that was thrown from the stands, Chalobah said: “Cheers to a W [beer emoji].”
Speaking to reporters after the game, Maresca was quizzed on James’ performance in midfield. The Chelsea boss said: “He is in a very good mood. He played very good against Aston Villa and again tonight.
"We know how important he is for us; he is our captain, a fantastic player but we all know the most important thing for Reece is that we need him fit. It is our duty and our target to keep him fit until the end because for sure, he is going to help us.
"Tonight, again, he played very good, scored a goal. He can play in many positions because the good players can play in many positions. At this moment, we are using him as a midfielder and he is doing very well."
Maresca added: "So, you can ask Reece; when I signed with Chelsea, probably the day after, I sent him a video about seeing him as a midfielder. I see Reece as a midfielder, not now – since day one, before I met him for the first time, he was on holiday.
"I sent him a clip about him playing as a midfielder. I mentioned Reece playing as a midfielder a long time ago. He is playing there now but the good thing is he played this year already as a full-back, as a centre-back and in the central midfield. The main target for us is to help him be fit all season."
Then, on finally winning away from home, Maresca said: "A long time [laughs]! Yeah, very important for many reasons. For sure because it's away, for sure because it's a knockout game now so you need that. And also for the performance.
"They surprised us because in the last almost three years with this manager, they played two games with a line of five, so we didn't expect that. In the first-half, we controlled the game, we didn't create chances.
"Also, when we planned the game, we also expected not to create many chances when we have Shim [Mheuka], who is 17-years-old, Ty [George] is 17-years-old; we knew we would struggle a little bit."
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Story SavedYou can find this story in My Bookmarks.Or by navigating to the user icon in the top right.Follow Football LondonFacebookX (Twitter)CommentMore On
- Chelsea
- Enzo Maresca
- UEFA Europa Conference League
- Reece James
- Trevoh Chalobah
- Cole Palmer
