Sports News of Tuesday, 20 July 2021
Source: ghanasoccernet.com
2021-07-20
Baba Rahman with Hakim Ziyech
Ghana defender Baba Rahman begun pre-season in style with a glorious assist as Chelsea thrashed lowly Peterborough 6-1 behind closed doors in Cobham.
The Ghana international dusted off the cobwebs in style as his low cross found Hakim Ziyech for the Morocco internationals hat-trick of the day.
Tammy Abraham, Christian Pulisic and Armando Boja also scored for the European Champions though it was the visitors who opened the scoring early on through Siriki Dembele,who converted from the penalty spot.
The game was Rahman’s first since playing in a friendly for the Black Stars against the Ivory Coast in Cape Coast Ghana. He was introduced in the second half as part of the whole changes German manager Thomas Tuchel made to ensure all players where given at least 45 minutes under their belt before heading to Ireland next week.
27-year-old Baba Rahman still has a year left on his Chelsea contract and will be hoping to impress Thomas Tuchel who took over from Frank Lampard mid-way last season and going on to make history by leading them to their second Champions League trophy.
The German manager knows Rahman from his high flying days as the best left back in the Bundesliga with Augsburg and later Schlake 04 before unluckily suffering two major knee injuries that halted his blistering career.
Rahman is enjoying a clean bill of health for the first time in three years and is coming off a brilliant campaign in the Greek league with PAOK where he helped them lift their first Greek Cup in almost a decade.
The Chelsea defender’s return to full fitness has coincided with a rise in stock for his services with French side Reims, German side Augsburg, Greek side PAOK and Italian side Torino all jossling for his services this summer.
GHANAsoccernet.com understand the player will not rush into making a decision on his future and will decide his next move after holding talks with Chelsea manager Thomas Tuchel when their halfway through their Pre-season campaign.
The former Asante Kotoko left back is one of the lovelist characters in world football and is dream card for most managers with his humility, experience and professionalism a rare commodity to find in professional sports these days.
This was Thomas Tuchel’s first pre-season game for Chelsea and he lined up in usual style in a 3-4-2-1 formation, just as he would have last season.
Jake Clarke-Salter, Trevoh Chalobah and Malang Sarr at the back. Davide Zappacosta, Danny Drinkwater, Ross Barkley and Marcos Alonso made up the midfield. In attack, Christian Pulisic and Callum Hudson-Odoi provided support for Abraham. Youngster Jamie Cummings was the man in post.