Barcelona’s trip to Stamford Bridge turned out to be a nightmare after the Catalans were forced to play close to an hour with ten men.
Chelsea indeed dominated most of the first half and outclassed Barcelona in midfield, but the game completely swung in their favour when the Catalan captain Ronald Araujo had himself sent off.
Playing with ten men, Hansi Flick’s men had no chance against the spirited London-based side who went on to score two goals after the break to seal the 3-0 win in the Champions League.
Barça Universal brings you the player ratings from Chelsea 3-0 Barcelona.
Joan Garcia: 6
The goalkeeper had a rough night putting up with Chelsea’s incessant attacks and cannot be faulted too much for the goal conceded. Did well with his distribution and made runs out of the box to cut off Chelsea’s long-ball induced attacks.
Alejandro Balde: 5
The left-back had a difficult night holding off Chelsea’s pacey attack and often struggled to cover defensively after venturing forward in attack.
While he did well with the offside trap, he was often outrun by Reece James and Estevao and came out second best.
Pau Cubarsi: 6.5
The youngster showed good maturity in holding down Chelsea and even did a decent job of it to a certain degree. He was comfortable with his distribution and held the offside trap to good effect.
Ronald Araujo: 2
On how many Champions League nights can Araujo keep letting his team down? At this point, a big UCL night has become synonymous with the Uruguayan’s errors.
Took an unnecessary yellow card arguing for a foul that had taken place minutes ago, and then went on to jump into a rash challenge foolishly to take the red card late in the first half and leave the team hanging with ten men.
Jules Kounde: 5
Kounde again had a game that was not marred by the slackness which highlighted the first part of his campaign.
Unfortunately, however, he went down as the player responsible for Chelsea’s first goal as it took a deflection off him before going into the back of the net.
Eric Garcia: 4.5
The Spanish ‘swiss-knife’ was played in a defensive midfield role last night and was partner to Frenkie de Jong in the department.
On this occasion, however, he could not impose his authority as well as he did at the weekend as Chelsea’s midfield simply outran and outpressed him.
Frenkie de Jong: 4.5
Chelsea dominated the midfield at Stamford Bridge. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Back in the starting lineup and entrusted with the responsibility of leading the midfield on the night, De Jong simply struggled and understandably so given how dominant Chelsea were in the middle of the park.
While he was decent with his distribution, he failed to hold off the hosts’ possession, press them off the ball and hold off counterattacks.
Fermin Lopez: 4
Lopez’s game at Stamford Bridge was anything but what he would have liked to have shown to the club he was linked with in the summer.
While his tenacity was undeniably positive, he struggled to hold on to the ball and was frequently dispossessed. Was taken off for Andreas Christensen just past the hour mark.
Lamine Yamal: 5
Yamal did not turn up against Chelsea. (Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images)
Yamal had a very silent first half, barely featuring or getting on the ball to good effect. Marc Cucurella did well to neutralise his threat as he too did not lunge too much into taking players on.
Did not make much of a mark after the break either, completing one of his least influential games in a long time.
Ferran Torres: 4
The Spaniard missed an atrocious chance in the opening minutes of the game that he had simply no business putting wide and did not convince in the rest of his time on the field as well.
While his work rate off the ball was decent, his runs were not well timed and he did not get into threatening positions half as often as he should have.
Robert Lewandowski: 4.5
The Polish striker could not make the sort of impact he would have wanted to as he struggled to make it past Chelsea’s defence throughout the first half.
With the team reduced to ten men, his role only diminished after the break and he was replaced by Raphinha after the hour mark.