Chelsea reach the final of the Club World Cup, as predicted, but just not in a manner they would have expected.
The European champions were made to work embarrassingly hard against Saudi Arabia’s Al Hilal for an underwhelming 1-0 victory, secured by Romelu Lukaku. The fact the striker had again scored – his first in a month and only his second in 2022 so far, the other against Chesterfield – was one of the few positives, but the game mostly showed why Chelsea had at one point considered Al Hilal manager Leonardo Jardim as a potential candidate for the Stamford Bridge hotseat.
