Chelsea goalkeeper Kepa Arrizabalaga said they gave Real Madrid Vinicius Jr. too much space in the first leg, but they have a plan to stop him in on Tuesday.
Vinicius, who was eventually named the man of the match at Santiago Bernabeu last week, is arguably the Real Madrid player who caused most problems for Chelsea in the first leg.
The Brazil international’s movement led to Karim Benzema’s opener and he assisted Marco Asensio who doubled Real Madrid’s lead in the second half.
Craig Burley previously said that Reece James’ positioning allowed Vinicius to get into many one-on-one situations against the isolated Wesley Fofana and Chelsea paid for it.
Arrizabalaga seemed to agree with this but also claimed that it will be different at Stamford Bridge.
“He is a player who is in spectacular form,” the Spain international said about Vinicius in Monday’s press conference.
“He is very decisive, and with space even more so.
“Maybe we gave him too much space and we weren’t looking after him enough [in the first leg].
“That’s something we need to improve on for tomorrow, because he’s a player who, as he is now, at any moment, can put one past you”.
“Obviously we have a plan, an idea, and we have to work on it as a team.
“If one player is not there, another one comes on, and it has to be a team effort to stop Vinicius and the other [Real Madrid] attackers.”
The downside of marking Vinicius more tightly is that it would limit James’ freedom to join the attack.
Bear in mind that despite his relatively poor performance in the first leg, James still created arguably Chelsea’s best goalscoring chance in the game, which unfortunately Raheem Sterling could not convert.
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