Frank Lampard believes Tammy Abraham’s maiden Champions League goal will be the first of many.
Abraham found the net on his birthday and Willian marked his 300th Chelsea appearance with the second as Chelsea won 2-1 in Lille.
Abraham is expected to earn an England call-up on Thursday, and Lampard said: “Tammy’s performance was more of the same of what we have been seeing.
“It’s his first Champions League goal and we’ll see many more, I hope, and many more performances like tonight.”
Abraham celebrated his 22nd birthday with a goal in the 22nd minute after Marcos Alonso, in an advanced position down the left, laid the ball back to Fikayo Tomori.
Lille hit back 12 minutes later when Chelsea left the impressive Victor Osimhen unattended to head in a corner at the far post.
However, with 13 minutes remaining substitute Callum Hudson-Odoi got free down the left and lifted the ball towards the far post, where Willian struck a clever volley into the ground and over Maignan.
Lampard had played down the significance of this match but after dropping all three points to Valencia at home two weeks ago, and with a trip to to Ajax next up, the margin for error would have got a lot smaller without a victory.
“This is such a tough place, anyone in this stadium would tell you. The roof was on, the crowd were up for it. The speed in their team, in an attacking sense and counter attacking particularly, was very evident.
“We knew to be ready for it and I thought our performance was really good. We controlled the early periods of the game, we got our goal.
“Set pieces are a problem for us and we have to keep working on that even more, but with the way we played, the chances we created and the possession of the ball we had, I felt we deserved to win.”
Lille manager Christophe Galtier said: “We’re frustrated. We equalised at the right time. I tried to strengthen the midfield to win the ball back higher up the pitch, but it didn’t really work and then we conceded a goal of real quality.
“It’s a tough learning curve, and we need to work harder to improve.”
