Chelsea 4 Southampton 2
Hazard 5 Romeu 24 Cahill 45 Costa 54 Costa 89 Bertrand 90
Chelsea are seven points clear of Spurs this morning.
When Costa held the ball up early on, Southampton’s blinkered defenders allowed Hazard to run 20 yards to join Costa and get the ball and fire a right foot shot across Fraser Forster into the far corner.
At 7.44pm I’d had a bet on Chelsea/Chelsea.
Replacing Fabregas this season, Kante has lifted Hazard and the whole Chelsea team.
Antonio Conte loves his Kante-Matic anchor team, rightly so.
But Fabregas started here. In a big match, most Italian coaches go for experience.
When Fabregas found Costa with a lovely and typical pass, the big man laid it off beautifully for his mate to shoot. But Hazard’s shot was high and wide. The ball clearly bobbled. I could see that, even without a replay. Hazard’s foot wasn’t in the wrong place. The ball was.
Then Ward-Prowse took a corner, Azpilicueta miskicked and Manolo Gabbiadi prodded the ball across to the goalmouth for Romeu to make it 1-1.
Southampton have clever players and produced a lot of good play round the ball.
When Kante was booked in 39, I actually began to wonder whether Chelsea were missing Pedro’s pace.
I RARELY BACK A TEAM TO BE WINNING AT HALF-TIME AND FULL TIME.
Because that bet gives you two chances of losing.
After 45 minutes, I thought I’d blown it but was still sure Chelsea would win.
Then Cahill saved me with a header in first half stoppage time. Alonso’s header back is aimed high and as he jumps Cahill has time to think about where and how he will head the ball in for 2-1 at half-time.
Second half, Fabregas was soon booked for whacking Romeo and then he took a short corner on the right, got the ball back from Hazard and supplied a killer cross that allowed Costa to head his 50th goal for Chelsea, after bulldozing Bertrand away from the ball.
103 assists for goalmaker Cesc Fabregas in the Premier League! What a player!
After the 70-minute mark Chelsea were 3-1 up and turning on the style and Mrs Palmer said, “Excellent passing, I have to say.” Then she went into the kitchen, Pedro replaced Cesc, JT came on for Moses, and Diego Costa played a sweet one-two with Hazard and an even sweeter one-two with Pedro, who flicked the ball back to Costa, who buried a right foot shot for 4-1.
When Jan came back into the room, I rewound the action so she could see the superslick passing she’d just missed.
Then Ryan Bertrand jumped above Cahill and his glancing header bounced on the line and in for 4-2.
All through the match I was saying, “This a really good Premier League game!”
Marttin Tyler’s commentary with Niall Quinn benefited from their wonderful rapport.
Sky pundit Graeme Souness said, “This Chelsea can pick you off. A very , very impressive Chelsea.”
On Costa, Jamie Redknapp said, “He’s a midfield player’s dream.”
Souness said, “He’ll take some replacing, Costa.”
Agree, Graeme. There’s nobody in any league who can do everything Diego Costa does as efficiently as he can. He’s a moody, belligerent enigma and I think he will go to China.
But Costa is the real deal, a proper centre forward, as Fernando Torres was at Liverpool, as the dynamic Didier Drogba was, as the great Peter Osgood was.
Niall Quinn, who was a big target man himself, gave Man of the Match to Costa.
I bumped into Chelsea Kevin at John’s shop this morning and he was at the game.
He said,”We’re not playing well but Spurs are tired. When we score, we knock it around for 10 minutes and take a break. We can lose two games and still win it.”