Chelsea recovered from their shock defeat to Newcastle last weekend with a relatively comfortable victory over Hull City.
Diego Costa ended his goal dought after Hazard gave Chelsea the lead to maintain Chelsea’s lead at the top of the Premier League.
It was Chelsea’s eighth home win in as many games this season as they continued to look the strongest team in the League.
However, the victory was a scrappy one as Chelsea continued to look below-par, despite facing ten men for much of the second half.
The Blues didn’t miss Thibaut Courtois as Petr Cech took his place and kept a clean sheet in the Chelsea net, although the Chelsea legend wasn’t too busy throughout the match.
Nemanja Matic returned and was partnered in midfield with John Obi Mikel as the metronome that is Cesc Fabregas served a one games suspension.
Eden Hazard got the home side off to a flyer with a free header off the back of Oscar’s brilliant cross. It seemed as if Chelsea would go on the romp over the Tigers, but they failed to make the most of their early advantage.
In fact, that was Chelsea’s only effort on target during the first half despite Michael Dawson’s injury that saw the centre-half hobble off the field, replaced by Alex Bruce.
At half time, Chelsea could boast superior possession but didn’t make it pay and only led by a single goal at the break.
Hull also had mulitple opportunites to break and threaten Mourinho’s side due to some poor midfield Chelsea passing.
Steve Bruce’s side had the better start to the second half as Jake Livermoore went close and Meyler won a freekick in a threatneing position that ultimately came to nothing.
The first major action came fifteen minutes after the restart as Huddlestone flew into a poor challenge on Filipe Luis and was shown the red by referee Chris Foy.
And, finally, Chelsea made the most of the added advantage as Diego Costa ended his mini goal drought eight minutes later, linking up brilliantly with Hazard to fire into the bottom corner and double Chelsea’s lead.
Drogba, Schurrle and Ramires came on as Mourinho rotated and looked to hold on to and perhaps extend their lead, but it was just the two goal victory for the Blues this afternoon.
A far from perfect Chelsea performance but just what was needed to recover from a blip in League form and keep their lead at the top, particularly with City winning again today.
Hazard was key for the Blues today, nabbing a goal aswell as an assist to give Chelsea a relatively unchallenged victory today.
Match Facts
- Chelsea have seen more opposition players sent off against them than any other Premier League team this season
- Diego Costa’s goal was the 400th scored in the Barclays Premier League in 2014-15
- Diego Costa has the joint-most yellow cards in the Premier League this season
- Mourinho becomes the fastest Premier League manager in history to win 400 points (401 points in 174 games – W122, D35, L17)
- Chelsea have won all of their nine Premier League games this season in which they’ve been leading at half-time
Source: Opta
