Chelsea secured an important win over Atletico Madrid on Wednesday night courtesy of a last minute goal from Michy Batshuayi.
Antonio Conte’s side had fallen behind in the match but his side produced an impressive result to grind out the win.
For BT Sport pundits Rio Ferdinand, Frank Lampard and Steven Gerrard it was one of the best performances from an English side in Europe.
Speaking after the match, legendary Chelsea midfielder Lampard was full of praise for his former side.
When asked whether there has been a better performance from an English side away in Europe, he said: ‘Can’t think of one, Eden Hazard was spectacular. But I don’t think the performance was spectacular it was so professional, the discipline in how they set up and credit to the manager for that.
‘Their work rate and closing down against one of the strongest teams, who are usually closing the other team down and then the quality of their forward play at certain times.
‘Listen they didn’t score loads of goals, I don’t think anybody does there. But to win there and perform as well as they did was huge statement from Chelsea.’
Antoine Griezmann had opened the scoring for Diego Simeone’s side from the penalty spot after David Luiz was punished for pulling Lucas’ shirt.
But Ex-Real Madrid star Alvaro Morata brought them level on the hour before Batshuayi fired home with the dramatic winner.
Alongside Lampard in the studio was Gerrard, who was equally impressed with Chelsea’s ability to rip apart Atletico’s usually solid defence.
He said: ‘There will be bigger tests further down the line. And to be fair to Chelsea, that’s the first time I’ve seen this Atletico Madrid defensive unit get torn apart.
‘Even Real Madrid and Barcelona, I’ve never seen them two sides, who are the best tin the world, do that to Atletico so it was some performance.’
Fellow pundit Ferdinand also joined in: ‘I think what they’ve done here is they’ve set down a marker now. Before the game Conte mentioned he was looking to see his team could produce at this level.
‘Now he’s had his answer – they’re competent, they played against one of the best teams defensively and made them look very average in that department. So this is now the marker, they have to live up to this standard on a regular basis and that will be the test.’
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