Willie Star

Willian was arguably the star performer as Chelsea were held to a one all draw against Barcelona at Stamford bridge in one of the two UCL matches tonight with the Brazilian putting Chelsea ahead just after the hour mark, before Lionel Messi pylled the Catalonians back in the game with fifteen minutes to spare, leaving us to anticipate an interesting second leg a the Camp Nou.

As ri

As rightly predicted before the game, Barcelona saw more of the ball and the possession in the opening period saw Chelsea hold only 25%. At a point towards the dying end of the game, it was 179 passes by Chelsea as against Barcelona's 792. What was however more interesting was the way Chelsea attacked without the ball in the opening stages. Pressing Barcelona high up the pitch helped them restrain the Catalans and it wasn't surprising that despite hold more of the ball, Barcelona had no shot on target in the first 45 minutes of the game. Very unlike them.

Chelsea could have gone two up after Willian struck either side of the post in the first half after clearly beating the goalkeeper. They could have also been two up if Willian had released an early ball to N'Golo Kante when the blues attacked against the run of play in the second half. That mistake proved costly as the resulting attack led to Barcelona's equaliser.

A loose ball from Christensen missed Cesc Fabregas before Andres Iniesta, pouncing on the loose ball, skipped Cesar Azpilicueta's sliding tackle, before cutting back for Lionel Messi who slotted into the bottom corner for his first goal against Chelsea coming on his ninth try.

Willain's goal was his sixth involvement in Chelsea goals this season in the UCL, scoring and assisting three each and it was Messi's fourth of the campaign.

In all, it was a good show of football and nice performance put in by both teams nonetheless. We hope for a super cracker at the Camp Nou.

The other game between Bayern Munich was a rout as Bayern ran riot against their visitors, scoring five unreplied goals with both Robert Lewandoski and Thomas Muller grabbing a brace each and Kingsley Coman completing the rout. It was Lewandoski's 44th and 45th goals of his UCL career, surpassing Didier Drogba (44 goals). The win was also Bayern's 14th consecutive win in all competitions.

It has been a great turn around for the Bavarians since the return of Jup Henckyenes to the team and on paper it already looked a stroll in the park for Bayern. This was further aided by a 16th minute red card to Besiktas.

Besiktas in all sincerity are down and out albeit, they could win the second leg but it looks very unlikely.