Chelsea vs Lille Picks and Predictions: Blues Secure Home Win Amidst Struggles

The European Champions Chelsea welcome last season’s French title winners to Stamford Bridge on Tuesday as the West London team have their first knockout game on their route to, hopefully, retain their title.

Can Lille create an upset or will Thomas Tuchel’s Chelsea get the victory? Don’t miss our Chelsea vs. Lille tips and predictions.

Chelsea vs Lille match odds

Odds via the Covers Line, an average comprised of odds from multiple sportsbooks.

Compare Champions League odds before betting to ensure you get the best number.

Chelsea vs Lille betting tips

• Prediction: Chelsea (-334)
• Prediction: Under 2.5 (+100)
• Best bet: Chelsea to win 2-0 (+450)

Predictions made on 2/21/2022 at 4:00 p.m. ET.
Click on each prediction to jump to the full analysis.

Chelsea vs Lille game info

• Location: Stamford Bridge, London, England
• Date: Tuesday, February 22, 2022
• Time: 3:00 p.m. ET
• TV: CBS

Chelsea vs Lille betting preview

Weather

After experiencing horrific weather over the weekend and the start of this week, it looks like there’ll actually be sun when the game kicks off at 8:00 p.m. local time in London. The pitch should be wet and quick following the recent rain.

Injuries

Chelsea: Mason Mount MF (Doubtful), Callum Hudson-Odoi F (Doubtful), Reece James RB (Out), Ben Chilwell LB (Out).
Lille: No injuries to report.

Chelsea vs Lille predictions

Our predictions are compiled from the analysis of the spread and total and are indications of where we are leaning for this game.
Our best bet is the play that we like the most for this game, which we would actually put some of our bankroll behind.

Side analysis

Tuesday night sees Chelsea welcoming Lille to Stamford Bridge for a big game under the floodlights in the first leg of their Champions League Last 16 tie. Both Chelsea and Lille came into the Champions League this season following fairytale stories last season.

For Chelsea, it was becoming European Champions, an achievement that seemed out of the realms of possibility when Thomas Tuchel took over as manager of the club. For Lille, it was winning the Ligue 1 title, a truly incredible feat in which they finished one point better off than PSG.

Both clubs have struggled this season, Tuchel’s Chelsea is third in the league and are a long way from being the title challengers that we all expected going into the season. Lille’s season in Ligue 1 has been even worse, their manager Christophe Galtier left the club and moved to Nice, now Nice sits third in the table and Lille is down in 11th, 23 points behind PSG.

Chelsea, despite some struggles domestically, is still strong favorites to win both the game and the tie. That’s very well deserved and they should qualify for the next round. Chelsea haven’t been blowing teams out but I believe they win here and they are far superior in terms of quality. 

Tuchel’s Chelsea will be set up in his usual 4-3-3 and he has a squad with a relatively clean bill of health. Reece James and Ben Chilwell are long-term absentees and Mason Mount and Callum Hudson-Odoi are doubts.

In fact, the main question mark will be striker Romelu Lukaku. The Belgian has failed to live up to expectations since returning to West London and his performance against Crystal Palace at the weekend was shambolic, only managing to touch the ball seven times across 90 minutes. That isn’t acceptable for a player who signed for the seventh-highest transfer fee ever. He simply has to do better.

There are calls for him to be dropped and many are speculating that Timo Werner will play down the middle against Lille but I believe that Tuchel will stick with Lukaku. This week, Tuchel has claimed that it’s “not time to laugh about” Lukaku and he has shown patience with strikers in the past.

It would be wise to give the player his backing and let him play himself into form against a poor Lille team, a goal here would do him the world of good and I wouldn’t be surprised if it happened.

N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic will look to dominate possession and control the middle of the park and offer up chances to Chelsea’s front three, with Hakim Ziyech likely to start. The Moroccan has been in good form and his winning goal against Crystal Palace surely puts him in line. 

Lille should line up in a 4-4-2 and they’re going to need to sit back and soak up the Chelsea pressure, just looking for an opportunity to hit them on the counter and potentially score a goal.

For Lille, they’d be happy to return to France for the second leg with the game tied, so don’t expect them to pile the pressure on Chelsea. There are a few players you may recognize in that Lille lineup, 36-year old Turk, Burak Yilmaz will start up top but he’s struggled to recreate last season’s goalscoring feats.

There’ll also be Premier League veteran Jose Fonte as well the Dutch defender Sven Botman who has been linked with a big-money move away. There’s also a chance we see Timothy Weah, son of the legendary George Weah or former Manchester United youth prospect Angel Gomes, who would love to put up a big performance against an English club.

As bad as things have been for Chelsea, they’re still one of the best teams in Europe and coached by one of the continent's best tacticians. Whereas Lille is struggling this season and has only two wins in their past seven. Back Chelsea here.

Prediction: Chelsea (-334)

Over/Under analysis

One thing we know about Thomas Tuchel is that when needed, he is happy to set his teams up to win narrowly. He’s never been about an expansive game, instead preferring to keep things tight and not to risk a goal going the other way.

Chelsea hasn’t been that high scoring at home this season with Over 2.5 landing in exactly 50% of their home matches. Chelsea should keep this game tight and get a narrow win. 

Prediction: Under 2.5 (+100)

Best bet

Chelsea finished second in their Champions League group behind Juventus, with 13 points. In six games they scored 13 goals, averaging marginally just above two goals scored per game. Given the nature of this tie we can expect Lille to come here looking to not concede and Chelsea, while dominating possession are unlikely to be playing gung-ho, they’ll be smart and pick Lille off.

Chelsea hasn’t been good defensively, conceding just four times in the Champions League and are unlikely to give up a goal to a Lille team with just 32 goals in 25 league games. With all factors considered, a 2-0 Chelsea win looks like a great shout at odds of +450.

Pick: Chelsea to win 2-0 (+450)

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