{"id":78201,"date":"2025-11-06T09:23:50","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T09:23:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/?p=78201"},"modified":"2025-11-06T09:23:50","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T09:23:50","slug":"garnacho-rescues-chelsea-from-defeat-in-baku","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/2025\/11\/06\/garnacho-rescues-chelsea-from-defeat-in-baku\/","title":{"rendered":"Garnacho Rescues Chelsea from Defeat in Baku"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>By Samuel Adeola<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Alejandro Garnacho\u2019s second-half strike spared Chelsea\u2019s blushes as the Blues battled to a 2-2 draw against Qarabag in their Champions League clash on Wednesday night in Baku.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea took an early lead through Estevao Willian in the 16th minute after a fine pass from Andrey Santos, but the hosts hit back quickly. Leandro Andrade levelled in the 29th minute, and Marko Jankovic converted a penalty ten minutes later following Jorrel Hato\u2019s handball.<\/p>\n<p>Coach Enzo Maresca introduced Garnacho, Enzo Fernandez, and Liam Delap after the break, and the substitutes made the difference. Delap set up Garnacho, who fired home from the edge of the box to make it 2-2.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea pressed for a winner, but Fernandez and Garnacho were denied by Qarabag goalkeeper Mateusz Kochalski.<\/p>\n<p>Despite their \u00a31.5 billion spending spree over three years, Chelsea struggled against a Qarabag side assembled for under \u00a37 million. Both teams now have seven points from four matches, keeping their hopes alive for the knockout stage.<\/p>\n<p>Chelsea, still without an away win in the Champions League since October 2022, will host Wolves at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Samuel Adeola &nbsp; Alejandro Garnacho\u2019s second-half strike spared Chelsea\u2019s blushes as the Blues battled to a 2-2 draw against Qarabag in their Champions League clash on Wednesday night in Baku. Chelsea took an early lead through Estevao Willian in the 16th minute after a fine pass from Andrey Santos, but the hosts hit back [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":78205,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[172,175],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-78201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-sports"],"aioseo_notices":[],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=78201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78206,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/78201\/revisions\/78206"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/78205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=78201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=78201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abujacityjournal.com\/livenews\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=78201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}