Chelsea picked up their third straight league win after a 2-1 victory over Stoke City at the Bet 365 Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
The biggest red flag from Chelsea’s team to face the Potters was the absence of Eden Hazard, who suffered an injury on the training ground and missed the trip as a precaution.
Otherwise, Antonio Conte started with Thibaut Courtois in goal, Cesar Azpilicueta, David Luiz and captain Gary Cahill across the back three, a defensive midfield duo of N’Golo Kante and Nemanja Matic, Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses on the flanks, Pedro and Willian as the inside forwards and Diego Costa up front.
Costa was clearly targeted early on, as the Spaniard was continuously frustrated throughout the opening 45 and the attack largely suffered because of it.
However, the Blues found the back of the net in the 13th minute when Willian curled a free-kick towards the near post from a near-impossible angle, fooling goalkeeper Lee Grant and putting Chelsea in front.
Stoke City equalised seven minutes before half-time when Cahill budged Johnathan Walters inside the penalty area. The referee called a penalty after Walters fell to the floor, and the forward would go on to beat Courtois from the spot.
The game looked to be on ice for a while before Cesc Fabregas entered in the 70th minute and shifted the formation to a 4-2-3-1. The Blues slowly upped their creativity and Cahill scored the winner in the 87th minute.
Here’s what we learned from the victory.
Big goal Gary
That celebration had me feeling some type of way.
Cahill scored after Fabregas whipped in a corner that found Luiz, whose shot was blocked before falling right to the Chelsea captain just outside the six-yard box.
I don’t have the stats to back this up, but this is just a gut feeling — it seems as though any time Cahill makes a big mistake, he makes up for it in a huge way, whether it be scoring a goal or making a crucial tackle. Whether or not Cahill’s nudge on Walters should’ve been ruled a penalty is a completely different discussion.
It was a beautiful ending to a game where Stoke looked disinterested in playing football, between the fouling and time wasting with so long to go in the match.
RLC super(b) sub
Ruben Loftus-Cheek came on in the 82nd minute and put in quite a shift. His pressure on the ball led to the corner that caused Cahill’s goal and the young English midfielder had some decent chances at goal after the Blues went up 2-1.
Creative issues
I wasn’t exactly sure why Conte opted to go for the more defensive midfield pairing, as the Blues lacked creativity for much of the match without Fabregas or Hazard on the pitch.
If anything, this should be a warning to Marina Granovskaia and co. to go out and get another creator or two that will immediately step into the Chelsea line-up due to Hazard’s injury past and Fabregas’ future in question.
21 points
21 is the magic number of points required for Chelsea to win the Premier League, as the Blues are currently up 13 points on Tottenham and Manchester City.
Those 21 points can come from any form of points gained by Chelsea or points dropped by those chasing the Blues.