Chelsea vs Krasnodar UEFA Champions League Match Preview or Key Statistics 🔵
Chelsea’s only previous meeting with FK Krasnodar came on MD2 of this season’s UEFA Champions League campaign, with Frank Lampard’s side winning 4-0 away from home.
This will be just the second time FK Krasnodar have faced an English opponent away from home in European competition, with their previous trip ending in a 1-0 victory against Everton in the 2014-15 UEFA Europa League.
Chelsea own a 100% record against Russian opposition in the UEFA Champions League, winning each of their five such games by an aggregate score of 13-1.
Victory for Chelsea would give them their highest ever points total in a single Champions League group stage (16), while they would be the fourth English team to gather such a high total after Arsenal in 2005-06 (losing finalists), Man Utd in 2007-08 (eventual winners) and Tottenham in 2017-18 (knocked out in last 16).
FK Krasnodar picked up their first Champions League victory last time out, beating Rennes 1-0 thanks to a Marcus Berg goal. The Russian side have won just one of their last nine away games in major European competition, however (D2 L6, excluding qualifiers).
Chelsea are the only side yet to face an Opta-defined ‘Direct Attack’ in the UEFA Champions League this season – a sequence that starts in a team’s own half and finishes with either a shot or a touch inside the box, with at least 50% of the movement going towards the opposition goal.
Chelsea have only lost their final group game in just one of their previous 13 Champions League campaigns (W8 D4), winning six of the last seven since losing at Marseille on MD6 in 2010-11.
Of keepers to play at least three Champions League games this season, Chelsea’s Edouard Mendy has the best save percentage in the competition (93.8%), conceding just one goal in his five appearances so far.
Chelsea’s Olivier Giroud has scored five goals from just six shots on target in the Champions League this season, netting all four of the Blues’ goals last time out against Sevilla.
Since the start of the 2018-19 season, Olivier Giroud has scored 16 goals in major European competition, at least 10 more than any other Chelsea player. In the Blues’ history, only Didier Drogba (36) and Frank Lampard (25) have scored more European goals (excluding qualifiers) than Giroud (16), with his four-goal haul against Sevilla putting him level with Peter Osgood and Fernando Torres.
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