Bournemouth 1-0

Telegraph:

Bournemouth 0 Chelsea 1: Eden Hazard the difference in narrow yet comfortable win

Sam Dean

Amid all the inconsistencies and defensive fragilities, all the bluster and “bulls---” that has so infuriated Antonio Conte, here was an evening of welcome solidity for Chelsea.

A well-earned victory, a timely clean sheet and three points that keep them within touching distance - just about - of league leaders Manchester City will ensure this is regarded by the champions as a job well done.

Eden Hazard was the match-winner, scoring with a second-half strike after a series of Bournemouth errors, but more pleasing for Conte will be his side’s first clean sheet for more than a month.
“For sure, we played a good game,” the Chelsea manager said. “For a big part of the game we played very well, with maturity and good possession, and tried to create and find the right ball between the lines. We created many chances to score.”
A minor concern will be that only one of those chances was taken, but Conte will not be having many sleepless nights if his defence remains as resolute as this.

Bournemouth were limited to a handful of half-chances and nothing more, with manager Eddie Howe admitting afterwards that his side were “too passive”. Their struggles continue, and they continue to linger in a perilous 19th place in the league table after 10 games.
That will not change if they continue to defend like they did for Hazard’s goal, which played out in three painful acts for the home side.

First, defender Simon Francis fluffed his clearance, allowing Hazard in. Second, Francis slipped when trying to make amends. And then, in a third and sorry final instalment, goalkeeper Asmir Begovic was far too easily beaten by Hazard’s near-post shot. To make matters worse, it had all started with a Bournemouth goal-kick.

“It was not just a goalkeeping error,” said Howe. “It was a really poor goal. They had a lot of the ball, we plugged gaps and threw our bodies in the way, but to then concede from our goal-kick, with a couple of errors thrown in, was hugely disappointing.”

Chelsea should have taken the lead long before then. Alvaro Morata twice went close, while both Cesc Fabregas and the impressive Tiemoue Bakayoko wasted further opportunities before the break.
“We could have been more clinical in the first half,” Conte said. “In this type of game, you must be able to kill the game. If you keep the result in the balance, you risk drawing in the end.

“The only negative aspect is when you create so many chances to score, you have to take them. Tonight, that was the only negative aspect. For the rest, I am very happy.”
For all Chelsea’s profligacy, there remained little prospect of a Bournemouth equaliser. Jordon Ibe went closest with a long-range strike, while defender Steve Cook could arguably have done better with a stoppage-time effort, but that was all the home side were able to muster.

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Observer:

Eden Hazard’s solitary strike secures victory for Chelsea over Bournemouth
AFC Bournemouth 0 - 1 Chelsea

Dominic Fifield at the Vitality Stadium

Antonio Conte fidgeted his way anxiously through the latter stages here, the Italian a picture of agitation on the touchline as Bournemouth mustered everything they had to discomfort the champions. Yet, by the end, the sense lingered that Chelsea’s domestic campaign is returning to an even keel. Their margin for error has gone, of course, and the summit remains distant, but successive league wins have at least lanced the tension.

This finished feeling like a hard-fought victory though, in truth, the visitors should really have eased themselves clear during a one-sided opening period. Given their dominance at that stage, it seemed rather ludicrous that Eden Hazard’s shot, belted inside Asmir Begovic’s near-post six minutes into the second half, was ultimately all they had to show for some of their more vibrant attacking play of the campaign to date. The head coach acknowledged as much in the aftermath, urging his players to be more clinical in killing off games of this nature.

Yet, in the context of a dip in performance levels either side of the last international window and with references still coming to the untimely injuries which have blunted his team, Conte finished satisfied. He has spent the last week on a restoration exercise. His squad needed to be reminded of their qualities, with confidence rebuilt and both conviction and momentum returned to their campaign.

“This was a deserved win, a good win for our confidence and a good win before another tough game against Roma in the Champions League,” said the Italian. “Honestly, last season we won 3-1 here but today we played better. We controlled the game. Last season we conceded more chances and, in one part of the game, we were lucky. So I saw a lot of positives tonight.”

Principal among them was Hazard’s display. The Belgian tends to thrive on visits to this arena, revelling in the space afforded him by Eddie Howe’s side, with this no exception. He would prove to be the match-winner, ramming that shot beyond Begovic, though the Bosnian, a team-mate and title winner last term, betrayed his own disappointment at his attempt to block with the subsequent slump of his shoulders.

Howe pointed out that others were just as culpable with the winner having stemmed from a Bournemouth goal-kick but, in truth, Hazard was always likely to sear his name on this occasion. He was the outstanding performer, a constant menace with the ball glued to his instep, and a provider of opportunities for Álvaro Morata and David Luiz which should have yielded further rewards.

Chelsea will travel to Italy on Monday relieved to have their Belgian back to his best, for all that Roma will be more awkward opponents in midweek. They will certainly not afford Hazard as much time on the ball. Indeed, Howe bemoaned how “passive” his team had been through that one-sided opening period, when Morata had a goal wrongly ruled out for offside, and cited the fact the contest remained goalless at the break as a sole positive. Yet, even with Jermain Defoe withdrawn and their system rejigged thereafter, it was only at the death that they hinted at conjuring an equaliser. And even then, Steve Cook’s shot, curled straight at a grateful Thibaut Courtois, was their most presentable opening for all that César Azpilicueta and David Luiz were forced to fling themselves into blocks to deny Benik Afobe and Callum Wilson.

Opponents have been exploiting the absence of N’Golo Kanté over recent weeks, with Chelsea having shipped eight goals in the four games while the Frenchman has been hamstrung, to suggest this was a missed opportunity. Conte hopes to have the midfielder restored at the Olympic Stadium but will be conscious that Manchester United await next Sunday. “If he’s ready, he plays,” said the head coach. “But everyone knows the importance of the player. I want to be sure he is ready.”

Yet Bournemouth never really threatened to inflict wounds in the way Crystal Palace, Roma, Watford and even Everton had. Some of the zest has drained from their approach this term, with the onus now on their manager to instigate a revival. “We have to work out why we’ve gone from a free-scoring team to a side who struggle to create clear-cut chances,” said Howe. “I have to work it out. I have to find the right formula.”

He has been hampered by injuries, too, and had lost Junior Stanislas and Afobe before the end. November’s games look kinder on paper but this division is notoriously treacherous, as Chelsea have been reminded of late. The champions know only a run as eye-catching as last term’s 13-game winning streak will thrust them back into the title race. Successive victories are a start.


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Mail:

Bournemouth 0-1 Chelsea: Eden Hazard fires Antonio Conte's side to victory as Eddie Howe's men remain in the bottom three of the Premier League

By Adam Crafton for The Mail on Sunday

When the goal finally came, it was alarming in its simplicity. Alvaro Morata held the ball up superbly, as he did all evening long, ghosted away from a couple of defenders and pitched a pass into the left channel. Eden Hazard gave chase, Simon Francis tumbled over in hot pursuit and the Belgian fired the ball through Asmir Begovic and into the goal.

For Chelsea manager Antonio Conte a surge of relief. This had been a reasonable enough away performance but for 51 minutes a sense of frustration grew as Chelsea spurned a catalogue of openings. Conte's response was to throw his arms out in celebration but his thoughts immediately turned. He pointed his index fingers towards his head and told his players to concentrate.
If Chelsea retain the merest aspiration of defending their Premier League crown, this was a game they dare not lose. Indeed, they could barely afford a draw.

The team coach arrived on the south coast with the players aware that at the start of play they were sitting 12 points behind leaders Manchester City. Jose Mourinho's Manchester United were seven ahead, with the former Chelsea manager returning to Stamford Bridge next Sunday.
To their credit, Chelsea did start this game with purpose. Their passing was crisp and their build-up play well thought-out, if a little ponderous at times. Yet Chelsea's territorial dominance was such that Conte's side could well have been home and dry by the half-time whistle.

Instead, an exasperating period saw them denied first by their own carelessness, then by the assistant referee's errant judgement and finally by the courage of the Bournemouth goalkeeper Begovic.
Morata was the first culprit. A tragicomic 30 seconds saw Begovic skew a clearance straight into Hazard's path. The Belgian carried the ball forward and teed up Morata perfectly but as he opened up his body, he sidefooted it wide of the post.

At times this season, Conte has appeared to be spoiling for a fight at every turn. This week, the print media felt his wrath but unease towards the club hierarchy and his own players has pockmarked the Italian's tenure since the end of last season.

The officials may be next on his hit-list after Morata was then denied by Eddie Smart's offside flag.
A well-worked set-piece saw Hazard pull the ball back for David Luiz, whose effort was deflected into Cesar Azpilicueta. Begovic saved and Morata turned the ball into the net. Yet up went Smart's yellow flag to curtail the champions' celebrations. Replays did not reflect well on the official's decision, with Azpilicueta shown to be level.

Bournemouth, languishing in the relegation zone and with pressing needs for points of their own, threatened rarely. A victory at Stoke aided matters last week but the club have not won consecutive Premier League matches since April. Benik Afobe wasted one positive opening and Azpilicueta defended impressively when Francis flashed a ball across the Chelsea goal.

The visitors kept coming. As the first half ended, they could not have set up camp more in the Bournemouth half if they had pitched a row of tents across the 18-yard line. A breakthrough appeared inevitable.
Morata's qualities soon came to the fore, as he tip-toed by two opponents following some lovely interplay with Hazard. The Spaniard shot powerfully towards goal but Begovic was able to spread himself and divert the ball over. Conte screwed up his face and ran his hands over his visage before turning back to the dugout in frustration.

Little wonder that he smiled so broadly when the breakthrough finally came.
His team still had the occasional fright, most notably when Luiz and Cesc Fabregas ran into each other and Jermain Defoe's replacement Jordon Ibe struck the ball over the top.
Captain Azpilicueta appeared to meet every cross. When Thibaut Courtois was finally called upon, he held firm when Steve Cook powered a strike on goal.
Indeed, Chelsea should have closed the game off themselves when Fabregas broke from midfield and curled over the top from the angle.
For Conte, however, the victory was all that really mattered.

Bournemouth (3-4-2-1): Begovic 6; S Cook 6.5, Ake 7, Francis 5; Smith 6, L Cook 5.5, Surman 5.5, Daniels 6; Stanislas 6 (Pugh 63, 5.5); Afobe 5.5 (Wilson 74, 6) , Defoe 5 (Ibe 45, 6)
Subs not used: Boruc, Gosling, Arter, Mousset
Booked: Smith, Francis
Manager: Eddie Howe 5.5

Chelsea (3-4-2-1): Courtois 6; Azpilicueta 6, Luiz 6, Rudiger 6.5; Zappacosta 6, Fabregas 7, Bakayoko 7, Alonso 6.5; Pedro 6 (Drinkwater 79), Hazard 7.5 (Willian 85) Morata 7 (Batshuayi 79)
Subs not used: Caballero, Cahill, Christensen, Ampadu
Goalscorers: Hazard 51
Manager: Antonio Conte 7
Referee: Craig Pawson 6

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Independent:

Antonio Conte's frustrating week ends in relief as Eden Hazard secures hard-fought victory over Bournemouth

Bournemouth 0 Chelsea 1: Belgian forward takes full advantage of Asmir Begovic error to secure narrow victory as Blues overtake Arsenal and return to top four
Ian Winrow

Twenty-four hours after an angry outburst had revealed the depth of his frustration at the growing speculation surrounding his future, Antonio Conte was provided with a welcome distraction when Eden Hazard’s second-half goal ensured his Chelsea side avoided slipping further behind in the title race.

Conte was angered by reports Carlo Ancelotti is being lined up as his successor and of unrest within his squad. The Italian’s mood would have darkened further if his side had failed to respond to Manchester City’s earlier win at West Bromwich Albion that meant the defending champions started the game 12 points adrift of Pep Guardiola’s side in the Premier League table.
As it was, they were made to work hard for a win that was finally secured by Hazard’s

51st-minute finish.  This was not a performance to remember but it was sufficient to see off a Bournemouth side that remain in the bottom three.

Conte made just one change to the side that started last weekend’s victory over Watford, a win that might have been expected to have eased the scrutiny on the Chelsea head coach, with Gary Cahill dropping to the bench ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League trip to face AS Roma.
The Italian’s side had initially laboured against Marco Silva’s side seven days previously before the introduction of Michy Batshuayi from the bench helped inspire a recovery that overturned a 2-1 deficit.

The opening moments at the Vitality Stadium suggested the defending champions would face similarly obstinate opponents with Bournemouth, buoyed by back to back victories last week, approached the game with renewed confidence.
Howe’s side have faced a testing start to the campaign and had mustered just one Premier League victory before last week’s impressive win at Stoke City. That was followed by midweek defeat of Middlesbrough that set up a Carabao Cup quarter-final with Conte’s side, prompting Howe to talk of growing sense of momentum at the club.

That momentum would have been maintained had Benik Afobe made more of a 17th-minute opportunity when the striker found himself in space on the edge of the penalty area. The striker could have shot but instead played an overhit pass towards the advancing Charlie Daniels who did well to pull the ball back for Afobe, whose shot was deflected wide.
At that point, Chelsea’s two best openings had come after long balls behind the home defence had released first Pedro and then Davide Zappacosta but Nathan Ake, the former Chelsea defender, did well to spot the danger on both occasions.

Conte’s side were growing in authority and it appeared inevitable they would force the lead during a period of sustained pressure. Initially they were helped on their way by a  24th-minute mis-kicked clearance by Asmir Begovic, the keeper who left Chelsea for Bournemouth last summer.

The ball landed at the feet of Hazard, 25 yards from goal, and Begovic was relieved to see Alvaro Morata place his finish wide of the near post after the Spain international had been sent clear by his team-mate.
Two minutes later, Tiemoue Bakayoko rose above the home defence to meet Cesc Fabregas’s corner but could only direct his header at Begovic. And moments after that chance, Morata thought he had made up for his earlier miss after another Fabregas corner.

A half-clearance fell to David Luiz on the edge of the box whose shot was helped on by Cesar Azpilicueta and parried by Begovic into the path of Morata. The striker placed the ball into the net but the effort was ruled out because Azpilicueta had drifted narrowly offside.
Chelsea’s frustration was growing while Morata in particular was entitled to feel this would not be his day. That changed six minutes after the break when the forward assumed the role of provider to set up Hazard’s goal.

Morata did well to retain possession inside the centre circle, turning to make space before clipping a ball out towards Hazard on the left hand flank. Bournemouth skipper Simon Francis should have cut out the pass, but once clear, Hazard raced into the home area and took advantage of Begovic’s poor positioning to beat the keeper at his near post from a tight angle.
Bournemouth responded with Ibe’s goal-bound shot deflected over the bar by Rudiger but Chelsea repelled the home side’s late pressure to hold on for the win, much to Conte’s relief.

Bournemouth (5-3-2): Begovic 5; A Smith 6, Francis 5, S Cook 7, Ake 8, Daniels 7; L Cook 6, Stanislas 7 (Pugh 62,6) , Surman 6; Defoe 6 (Ibe 46), Afobe 6 (Wilson 73,6).
Subs not used: Boruc, Gosling, Pugh, Arter, Mousset.

Chelsea (3-4-3): Courtois 6; Azpilicueta 7, Luiz 6, Rudiger 8; Zappacosta 6, Fabregas 7, Bakayoko 6, Alonso 6; Pedro 7 (Drinkwater 78), Morata 6 (Batshuayi 73), Hazard 9 (Willian 85,6).
Subs not used: Caballero, Cahill, Christensen, Ampadu.
Referee: C Pawson

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Everton 2-1

Mail:

Chelsea 2-1 Everton: Willy Caballero shows kids it's an old man's game as he brilliantly denies spirited Toffees while Antonio Rudiger and Willian score

By Riath Al-Samarrai for the Daily Mail

For all the bright young things and their expensive elders, this was a tie won by a 36-year-old back-up goalkeeper without a hair on his head and barely a game to his name. What a decision it was to free Willy.
When Wayne Rooney had a volley, it was charged down. When Aaron Lennon went through, he was stopped. Likewise Phil Jagielka and Kevin Mirallas.

One by one, they took aim at Chelsea’s goal in the second half and in succession they hit the great wall of Willy Caballero. When the Argentine’s goal was finally breached, it was merely a consolation from Dominic Calvert-Lewin.

Caballero’s performance truly was one of boredom and brilliance — and in that order, for in the first half he had nothing to do except watch the same turgid game as everyone else, save for Antonio Rudiger’s goal on 26 minutes. But then how it all changed. Everton, managerless and apparently clueless under their caretaker, David Unsworth, suddenly smelled the salts.

They forced chance after chance, working their way through Chelsea’s second string. But they left with nothing, beaten by a man signed on a free transfer in the summer.
For Antonio Conte, it is clear that this is not a competition he will prioritise. Not yet anyway. But against the backdrop of his uneasy relationship at Chelsea, where he is under significant pressure for his job, this win was important.

In that context, it was perhaps a surprise to see the team he picked. Conte had indicated he would be going with a strong side, but ultimately the Italian kept only two players from the team that beat Watford at the weekend, with Rudiger and Gary Cahill retained in defence and Danny Drinkwater given his debut.

Finally. At long last. He lives. And maybe, just maybe, Chelsea can now breathe again themselves, because Drinkwater’s return from injury is desperately well-timed.
The midfield has been down on quality and personnel since N’Golo Kante was injured on international duty, and while Drinkwater will not fully compensate for the loss of Conte’s most important player, he ought to remove some of the vulnerabilities that have appeared in the past few weeks.

This was not his finest performance, with a few stray long balls and a few tired runs, but he also showed he has the touches and positional comfort of a player who helped Leicester do something incredible not so long ago.

In this tie, he was joined in the middle by 17-year-old Ethan Ampadu, who was making his first start. Will he make it? He looked solid, and played one particularly incisive first-half pass, but it’s a long-odds lottery for any young player in this Chelsea set-up.

A weak side? Not quite when it involved the likes of Willian among £150million of hardware, but also not close to what Conte would dream of using in the league.
As for Unsworth, he had riches of his own to call on, the legacy of a summer that offered so much but has led to pathetically little beyond the sacking of a manager.

The caretaker in Ronald Koeman’s place made his mark with five changes to the side crushed by Arsenal, most notably the inclusion of Lennon, who was making his first start since he was detained under the Mental Health Act earlier in the year.

His pace, as ever, was a threat. In the first half, though, Everton were horribly limited, barely capable of finding Rooney, much less putting him into any kind of position. They finished the half without logging a single shot on goal. At the back, they were even worse.

It was a defensive error that made the difference in the first half. That is probably putting it kindly, for Everton’s marking was shockingly poor when Willian rolled a short corner to Charly Musonda after 26 minutes.

Musonda took a touch, saw Rudiger lurking near the back post and in the time it took to whip in a cross no one even got close to the German. He had free space in all directions, so quite calmly headed back across goal and lobbed Jordan Pickford. Well executed, yes, but a gift of sorts as well.
Chelsea almost landed a second before the break when Drinkwater and Michy Batshuayi triggered a counter and Davide Zappacosta drilled into the side netting.

That was your lot for the first half. The second started with more of a bang, and quite literally as Beni Baningime, a 19-year-old debutant of some hype, crashed into Ampadu.

That collision seemed to jolt Everton rather than Chelsea. Within moments, Rooney had a volley saved by Caballero and then Lennon was also smothered by the keeper. A sign of life. Two good chances and two good saves.

Conte brought on Cesc Fabregas to replace Drinkwater but still the opportunities came for Everton, with Caballero forced into an exceptional save to stop Jagielka. He allowed himself a mini fist pump, before then getting down to keep out an effort from Mirallas. Brilliant stuff.

Ademola Lookman then hit the bar and the onslaught continued but from nowhere, Chelsea were safe, with Willian netting in stoppage time after a one-two with Fabregas.
Only then did Everton find a way through, Calvert-Lewin bundling past Caballero a minute later. It is testament to the old man that the goal was only a consolation.

Chelsea (3-4-3): Caballero 7.5; Rudiger 7, Christensen 6, Cahill 6; Zappacosta 6.5, Drinkwater 6.5 (Fabregas 62 6), Ampadu 6, Kenedy 6; Willian 7, Batshuayi 6 (Morata 84), Musonda 6.5 (Pedro 70 6).
Subs not used: Eduardo, Clarke-Salter, Sterling, Scott.
Manager: Antonio Conte 6.5
Booked: Rudiger

Everton (4-3-3): Pickford 6; Kenny 6, Williams 6, Jagielka 6, Baines 6; Davies 6, Baningime 6.5, McCarthy 6 (Calvert-Lewin 64 7); Lennon 6.5 (Lookman 73 6.5), Rooney 6 (Niasse 81), Mirallas 6.
Subs not used: Robles, Keane, Sigurdsson, Holgate.
Manager (caretaker): David Unsworth 5.5
Booked: Williams, Davies, McCarthy, Jagielka

Referee: Neil Swarbrick 6
MOTM: Caballero
Ratings by Sam Cunningham

RARE RUDIGER GOAL
Antonio Rudiger's last club goal was 535 days ago for Roma.
The German netted in a 3-0 win over Chievo in 2016.
Wednesday’s strike was just his fifth club goal.

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Telegraph:

Chelsea 2 Everton 1: David Unsworth's side defiant in defeat as Antonio Conte marches into League Cup quarter-finals

Sam Wallace, chief football writer, at stamford bridge

David Unsworth may know as soon as Friday whether he has a future as the long-term successor to Ronald Koeman but even if this turns out to be a short-lived second reign as the Everton caretaker manager, then he will reflect with some pride on this narrow cup defeat to Chelsea.

It is old English footballers like Unsworth, a successful and long-serving youth team coach, who rarely get the chance of a run in the big job and yet from a side drained of confidence, with no wins in their previous five he coaxed a much more coherent performance.

Everton’s late goal from substitute Dominic Calvert-Lewin meant that Chelsea were never comfortable in this cup tie but, as Watford discovered on Saturday, they have a habit of winning games.

Antonio Conte’s team are in the Carabao Cup quarter-final draw on Thursday courtesy of a first-half header from Antonio Rudiger and a fine second from Willian in the third minute of time added on at the end, which preceded the collapse of the Chelsea defence that let in Calvert-Lewin. If this is a crisis for the Premier League champions then they are weathering it well, with the 17-year-old Ethan Ampadu given his first start, and places for Charly Musonda and Kenedy and a debut for Danny Drinkwater.

As for Unsworth, the former  defender will meet Bill Kenwright on Friday to discuss the future with the likelihood that he will also take the team for Sunday’s visit to Leicester City. “I’m scheduled to meet the chairman, but I speak to the chairman, two, three, four times a day,” he said.
“What will be, will be. I just have to be committed. We have to try and win some games. There’s no points return or game total that we’ve been set. We’ll just plan game to game. I can only influence the training sessions and the games  going forward.”

He selected one of his own development players, the 19-year-old Beni Baningime, who acquitted himself well on his debut in the centre of midfield, alongside fellow teenager Tom Davies.
Everton struggled before the break when Rudiger scored with a header after 25 minutes from  Musonda’s cross, but in the second half the away team came into their own. “I’m very proud of them,”  Unsworth said. “There’s so much to work with. I’m pleased but not too pleased, because we lost the game.

“I don’t know [what it will take to get the job]. I honestly don’t know. All I know is that we’ll hopefully be as committed as that every game that I’m in charge.”
Conte said it was crucial that “if you want to develop young players you have to give them a chance to play a tough game” although there are many Chelsea players out on loan who would be ahead of Ampadu in the queue were they currently at the club.

Rudiger looped a header back over Jordan Pickford for the first-half goal.
Wayne Rooney, eventually substituted, struggled to make an  impression for Everton and missed a good chance in the second half. He almost made a goal for Chelsea’s Michy Batshuayi with a wayward back-pass, though.

Willian struck in the 92nd minute when he took a return from sub Cesc Fabregas out on the left and slipped a fine shot out of Pickford’s reach for Chelsea’s second goal. Then came Calvert-Lewin’s strike from close range and the game had an ending that felt like a cup tie.

Match details

Chelsea (3-4-3): Caballero 6; Rudiger 6, Christensen 6, Cahill 6; Zappacosta 6, Drinkwater 6 (Fabregas 62), Ampadu 7, Kennedy 6; Willian 7, Batshuayi 6 (Morata 85), Musonda 6 (Pedro 70).
Subs: Eduardo (g), Clarke-Salter, Scott, Sterling.
Booked: Rudiger.

​Everton (4-3-3): Pickford 6; Kenny 6, Jagielka 6, Williams 5, Baines 6; McCarthy 6 (Calvert-Lewin 64), Baningime 6, Davies 6; Lennon 5 (Lookman 73), Rooney 5 (Niasse 81), Mirallas 5.
Subs: Robles (g), Keane, Sigurdsson, Holgate.

Booked: Jagielka, Williams, McCarthy, Davies.
Referee: N Swarbrick (Lancashire).

==========================

Watford 4-2

Telegraph:

Chelsea 4 Watford 2: Michy Batshuayi completes miraculous Blues comeback with brace from bench
Sam Wallace

The memory of the great title defence meltdown of 2015-2016 is still fresh in the minds of all at Stamford Bridge and for that reason there may well have been distressing flashbacks among the support with 20 minutes left and a goal behind to opposition of a much lower status.
But those historic four months in the decline and fall of Jose Mourinho’s second Chelsea reign are no part of Antonio Conte’s history and the man who put the club straight back on their perch came to the rescue again, you might say, with three substitutions that changed the game. “Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t work,” Conte said with a smile afterwards. “But it is important for the coach to understand the right moment to change the situation.”

At 2-1 this would have been their third straight defeat in the league, a sequence of form they have not endured since the end of October and beginning of November two years ago, and what with all the noises off-stage around Conte, it felt like a seminal moment in the season. Watford had been excellent at that point, creating chances, squandering opportunities, and generally looking like a confident young team tuned-up perfectly by their young manager.

Trailing to goals from Abdoulaye Doucoure and Roberto Pereyra, and with a general mood of gloom permeating the place, Conte sent on Michy Batshuayi, Willian and Davide Zappacosta in that order and saved the day. The Belgian striker scored twice, further evidence that this occasionally awkward young man, walking in the giant footsteps of Didier Drogba and Diego Costa, is starting at last to find his feet at a club that has chewed up some of the world’s finest strikers.

How did Conte feel at that moment before his side came roaring back into the game? The impression he conveyed afterwards, in his carefully-chosen English, was very much that he refused to accept the pressure of the Chelsea job beyond what he believed he owed the fans. It was a terse assertion of his own independence as a coach of international renown who had a career before Chelsea and will have one afterwards too.

“I must be honest, I feel a lot of pressure but not this type of pressure [from the club],” he said. “If the club decide to sack me? I don’t feel this kind of pressure. I trust in my work and I repeat I try to give everything for the club I’m working for. I am doing this for Chelsea. I did it last season, I’m doing it this season. Honestly I will never be worried for this [the pressure of being sacked]. The pressure I have with my players is to satisfy the fans.”

Willian slung in the cross for the decisive third from Cesar Azpilicueta, teed up to do so by Zappacosta and once again Conte had asserted himself in the game. It was a blow for Watford, this accomplished fast-breaking team of diligently-scouted footballers hungry for the kind of success that the Premier League can bestow on a player. It was another day when the 20-year-old Brazilian Richarlison took centre stage, laying on the second goal for Roberto Pereyra  in between two colossally bad misses. 

Pedro scored the first for Chelsea, a move that came from a corner the Watford manager Marco Silva said should never have been given. Silva was unhappy with the outcome, a “really unfair result” he said, although conceding three goals in the final 19 minutes suggests that his team are not yet able to see out matches. “We didn’t deserve the result,” he said, “even taking just one point would not have been fair on us.”

No consolation for him that it was such a thrilling game, with Watford excellent for long periods although ultimately left to regret the chances they did not take. The miss from Richarlison on 48 minutes was a corker, alone at the back post and required only to guide Kiko Femenia’s low cross into an unguarded goal, the Brazilian missed the target. He still seemed to be shaking his head in dismay having made the second Watford goal for Pereyra, a fine move which started with Troy Deeney winning the ball in the centre of the pitch.

“He deserved all the credit for what he did until now, he’s fantastic,” Silva said of Richarlison. “I’m sure he will score again in the next games and he has scored very important goals for us in the past. He will score again in the future. It’s more important we create the chance. Richarlison in that moment was in the right position to score.”

His second miss was a header minutes later from Miguel Britos’ cross. By then it was already shaping up to be a great game. Pedro had given Chelsea the lead with a fine right-footed shot from outside the area, guided in off Heurelho Gomes’ post on seven minutes. The equaliser came just before the break when Watford won a throw on the right wing

On this occasion Tom Cleverley insisted that it be taken by Jose Holebas rather than Pereyra and the former slung a ball in that David Luiz cleared as far as Doucoure. His volley into the small gap by Thibaut Courtois’ left hand was no less than Watford deserved. At 2-1 down from Pereyra’s second half goal, Batshuayi came on for the ineffective Alvaro Morata to glance in Pedro’s cross.

Azpilicueta scored the third and then Batshuayi did well to finish the fourth, a Tiemoue Bakayoko interception from Holebas’ header during time added on at the end of the game. The comeback was complete. It was a giant vindication for Conte, against one of the league’s form sides, although from the way the Chelsea manager talks it does not sound like he loses too much sleep about what others think.

=========================

Observer:

Chelsea’s César Azpilicueta makes Watford pay for misses in thriller
Chelsea 4 - 2 Watford

Nick Ames

“That’s why we’re champions,” crowed the Matthew Harding Stand after César Azpilicueta had bundled Chelsea back from the precipice. Their meaning was clear enough: you do not win titles without the wherewithal to make light of a seemingly lost cause and the way that – invigorated by Antonio Conte’s substitutions – they punished Watford in the last 20 minutes brought to mind some of last season’s remorseless displays.

It would be equally accurate, though, to say that a repeat performance seems some way off and the prospect would have receded into the distance had their excellent opponents killed them off during a blistering spell early in the second half. At that stage Watford, niggly off the ball but so purposeful with it, were ripping Chelsea apart at will and they will regret the 53rd-minute header that Richarlison, who was to the fore throughout, planted wide from in front of the posts at 2-1 up.

Richarlison had missed an even more glaring opportunity just after half-time but instantly made amends to set up Roberto Pereyra, who duly scored Watford’s second. Better aim upon meeting Miguel Britos’s cross would have deepened the October gloom for Chelsea; instead the pendulum swung decisively, Azpilicueta’s 87th-minute goal coming between two sharp finishes from the substitute Michy Batshuayi.

None of those efforts could hold a candle to the one that set Chelsea off and running, at which point it seemed this might be the kind of victory that dulls talk of second-season syndrome, recruitment failures and disquiet at players’ workloads. Watford, looking like a team happy to trouble Chelsea on their own terms after picking up 10 points on the road, had started well but could do nothing about the whipped, first-time 25-yarder from Pedro that left Heurelho Gomes standing as it pinged in off his far post. The short corner that bred the opening should not have been awarded, Eden Hazard clearly running the ball out of play, but Watford’s inattention in such situations would become a theme. Besides, Chelsea hardly cared: after two straight league defeats a stroke of either luck or brilliance would have done, and here they had both.

Had Cesc Fàbregas opted for something more conventional than an attempted dink over Gomes, easily repelled, when supplied by Álvaro Morata, the afternoon’s fluctuations could have been avoided. Instead Watford, aided by Richarlison’s ability to win free-kicks but also by the strength and poise of Abdoulaye Doucouré in midfield, came again and deserved their equaliser. It arrived after David Luiz, heading a long throw against an unwitting Tiémoué Bakayoko, set the ball bobbling in the area and Doucouré finished without ceremony.

Half-time followed immediately but, while the equaliser complicated Conte’s team talk, the Chelsea manager could hardly have imagined the spell that would follow. He suggested afterwards that their defending, horribly loose and ill-disciplined, owed partly to a lack of time to prepare during a hectic schedule. That might not sufficiently explain the chaotic way in which their backline – a stumbling Gary Cahill among them– gave chase to Richarlison before the Brazilian freed Pereyra. Rarely, even in the depths of their 2015-16 season, have they looked this ragged at Stamford Bridge.

Their rivals will have noted those issues but, at the same time, the manner of their comeback should not be ignored. Conte appeared to switch Chelsea to a 4-4-2 after Batshuayi’s introduction although, against visual evidence, he later said their approach had hardly changed. Either way it seemed a risk to deploy the Belgium striker – one of many to disappoint at Crystal Palace and visibly unhappy upon his withdrawal that afternoon – in place of Morata and when an early loss of possession brought groans from the home crowd the die appeared to have been cast.

But the noise was rather different when Batshuayi got across Britos to head an excellent Pedro delivery across Gomes after the visitors again switched off at a short set play and suddenly there was a sense that Chelsea were off the hook, especially after Christian Kabasele passed up on a presentable Watford chance, nodding straight at Courtois.

Azpilicueta’s goal, which came almost unwittingly after a cross from another substitute, Willian, had flicked sharply off Kabasele, was no huge surprise when it came. Batshuayi, finishing confidently after latching onto a Bakayoko header, completed the comeback to give the score a flattering hue.
That was certainly the opinion of Marco Silva, the Watford manager, and Chelsea will continue to stumble through this most unforgiving of schedules if they do not find a way to tighten up. Reigning champions do not generally concede seven goals in a week but they do, as here, tend to muster the odd reminder of what has made them great.


===========================

Mail:

Chelsea 4-2 Watford: Michy Batshuayi nets late double after Cesar Azpilicueta completes stunning turnaround at Stamford Bridge to seal precious win

By Oliver Holt

Antonio Conte sat behind a table, talking about pressure and Chelsea's great escape against Watford. He clasped and unclasped his hands as he spoke. Sometimes, he gripped his wedding ring with the thumb and forefinger of his right hand and twisted it a couple of times. And then he talked about pressure again.
He said he didn't feel pressure. Not in the way that we imagined it anyway. He said that when Chelsea were 2-1 down yesterday and being outplayed by Marco Silva's buoyant young side, he was not thinking about the fact that Roman Abramovich is not a patient man.
He was not thinking, he said, about how Roberto di Matteo and Jose Mourinho were two of the managers who lost their jobs at Stamford Bridge around the onset of winter and on the back of indifferent runs of form. He did not feel haunted by their ghosts.

He was not thinking about how his team had started the day nine points behind league leaders Manchester City. He did not feel the weight of negativity bearing down on him at the prospect of a third successive league defeat, a prospect wiped away by two clever substitutions and a late blizzard of three Chelsea goals.
'I must be honest,' Conte said. 'I do feel a lot of pressure but not this type of pressure. If the club decides to sack me, well... I trust in my work. I try to give everything to the club but I will never be worried about that kind of pressure.
'The pressure that I feel is that I want to give satisfaction for our fans. I feel this type of pressure because the fans have shown me a lot of patience. This is the type of pressure that I feel and only this.'
Even if Conte was not concerned for his job, plenty of others were worrying for him. After leading Chelsea so impressively to the title, this season has been born under a bad sign for Conte. He has become trapped in a spiral of negativity that was threatening to spin him out of control.
He had poked Abramovich and the club's board several times already this season, complaining about a lack of investment and a thin squad and trying to make a point by wearing his club tracksuit on the sidelines in the opening games of the season.

History tells us that that approach does not work for long at Stamford Bridge. Mourinho, in particular, would attest to that. You poke the bear once or twice and then, if you are smart, you leave it alone. Otherwise, it wakes and it attacks you and shuts you down.
If this comeback win against a bold, exciting, technically assured Watford side is to be a turning point, however, much will have to improve in the weeks ahead. Conte has cut a thoroughly disenchanted figure for much of this season and he will know that Chelsea barely deserved to escape with a point from this match, let alone three.

Watford should have been out of sight by early in the second half and Chelsea only had a foothold in the game because of two breathtaking misses by Richarlison.
Perhaps it was apt that second-half substitute Michy Batshuayi, the man who won them the league with a winner at West Brom last season, should drag Conte back from the brink. It was Batshuayi, who grabbed the equaliser in the 71st minute and then, after Cesar Azpilicueta had put Chelsea ahead, Batshuayi squeezed home the goal that made the game safe late in injury time.

Fresh from their victory over Arsenal last week, Watford had started like a team that deserved to be in the Champions League positions. One beautiful early exchange between Roberto Pereyra and Troy Deeney left David Luiz looking bewildered as they played the ball around him.
But Chelsea ruined Watford's fine start soon afterwards. Eden Hazard tangled with Miguel Britos on the byline and even though the ball bounced into touch off the Belgian's heel, Chelsea were awarded a corner. The Watford fans protested loudly. From the corner, Hazard worked the ball to Pedro, who was lurking on the edge of the area. Pedro did not feel the need to take a touch. He hit the ball first time, curling it viciously out of the reach of Heurelho Gomes who could only stand and watch as it cannoned off the angle of post and crossbar and bounced into the net.

A few minutes later, Chelsea should have been two goals up. Alvaro Morata slid a fine pass through the Watford defence to Cesc Fabregas, who was ten yards out with only Gomes to beat. Fabregas tried to lift the ball delicately over Gomes but the goalkeeper stood up and caught it easily. It was a decent attempt by Fabregas but bold efforts like that look foolish when they don't work.
Watford forced the equaliser they deserved and Conte must have feared in the dying seconds of the half. The visitors were awarded a throw-in close to the Chelsea byline deep into injury time and Tom Cleverley stopped Pereyra taking it so Jose Holebas, who has a long throw, could run over instead.

It was a risk because referee Jon Moss kept looking at his watch and seemed to be about to blow for half-time. Holebas even stumbled in his first run-up and had to retreat and prepare for the throw-in a second time. When he eventually launched it into the Chelsea box, the defence struggled to clear it and when it bounced to Abdoulaye Doucoure, he lashed it past Thibault Courtois into the corner of the net.
Watford did not miss a beat when the second half started. They began it just as they had ended the first and should have been ahead after their first attack. Richarlison ran on to a superbly weighted cross and got in front of his marker at the back post. It seemed he had only to touch the ball to score but somehow he sliced it wide with his left foot.

It was only a short reprieve for Chelsea, though. Watford were full of confidence now and with their next attack, they carved the champions open again. Richarlison was the provider, threading a ball across the area to where Pereyra waited in acres of space. He took his time, picked his spot and swept the ball past Courtois.
A few minutes after that, Richarlison should have put Watford further ahead with another golden opportunity. The ball found him unmarked a few yards out but he mistimed his header tamely wide. Chelsea were reeling. Their fans were growing angry and fretful.

Watford looked in total control but their profligacy in front of goal came back to haunt them 20 minutes from the end. Chelsea mounted a rare attack and when Pedro swung in an inviting cross from the right, Batshuayi rose to glance it past Gomes. Azpilicueta put Chelsea ahead with a downward header three minutes from time and Batshuayi put the match beyond reach with what was all but the last kick of the game.


==========================

AS Roma 3-3

Telegraph:

Chelsea 3 Roma 3: Eden Hazard scores twice to rescue a point as Blues share six goals


Jason Burt


This really was a hazard warning. Chelsea were defensively catastrophic, alarm bells ringing amid rising chaos, before relying on Eden Hazard to rescue them with the second of his two goals, the first he has scored in the Champions League for 33 months, averting a third successive defeat.

Crises come quickly at Chelsea and if they had followed up two Premier League losses with another here it would have revved up the scrutiny, especially on manager Antonio Conte, who has not been slow to express his own discontent over the inadequacies of his squad.

That chaos was all over the pitch with David Luiz stomping off with a calf problem, but not before Conte had shown his apparent displeasure at the Brazilian’s at times ­brilliant but also scattergun performance while Cesc Fabregas had a page of instructions thrust into his hands. That the paper was A4 size showed how extensive the re-adjustments had to be.

There was more. Captain Gary Cahill suffered a clash of heads, a cut chin and carried on with a bandage applied around his head, ­making him appear like Humpty-Dumpty, and there was an egg-like fragility to Chelsea so unusual under Conte, who was also warned by Slovenian referee Damir Skomina for his jack-in-the-box – or outside the box as he encroached beyond his technical area – behaviour.

Conte was scathing afterwards, accusing his players of losing ­“totally our knowledge, our style of football”, although he eventually checked himself to praise the ­character his team showed after they appeared to have fractured.


And yet Chelsea got away with it and not least because, before they kicked off, Atletico Madrid blew it in Azerbaijan as they drew 0-0 with Group C whipping boys, Qarabag. It meant this draw kept Chelsea in control at the head of the group. Had they lost, it really would have made their visit to Rome in a fortnight’s time all the more enthralling. It had seemed the headlines would be about another Eden – or Edin – with Roma striker Edin Dzeko scoring two superb goals, including a spectacular volley, and going agonisingly close to completely a hat-trick with a close-range header just past a post.

Roma’s other goal came from ­another former Manchester City player, Aleksandar Kolarov. Conte must be sick of anyone associated with City, having lost against them in their previous home match.

For all the defensive deficiencies, and they were shared by Roma, this was a vibrant and exciting encounter humming with fine attacking play, although it remains uncomfortable to see a team of Chelsea’s ambitions reduced to the counter-attack.


At times Roma had 70 per cent possession with Radja Nainggolan, who was Conte’s first transfer target when the Italian took over at Chelsea, dominant in midfield. That was all the more worrying for Conte given he packed that department, just as he had done in their impressive win at Atletico Madrid, until he abandoned the system.

That performance depended on Hazard and Alvaro Morata and the striker’s return from his hamstring injury was key to the way Chelsea surged into a two-goal lead with Conte’s tactics appearing to work. Those goals also depended on Roma mistakes, seized on by an ­apparently ruthless Chelsea.

Luiz claimed the first as he nicked the ball away and rolled a pass towards Morata. It was intercepted by Juan Jesus but only back into the path of Luiz, who ran on to it and arced a powerful shot around Jesus, beyond goalkeeper Alisson Becker and into the net.


Roma threatened and should have drawn level when Marcos Alonso was caught forward and the ball was angled into the penalty area by Kevin Strootman, with a clever reverse pass for Nainggolan to hit a powerful first-time shot at Thibaut Courtois’s near-post. Courtois blocked.

But then Chelsea capitalised again on another turnover as Hazard stole the ball away, dispossessing Bruno Peres to find Morata, whose shot looped up off Federico Fazio and dropped for Hazard to steer past Alisson.

It was his first goal of the season and his first in the Champions League since March 2015.

Normally, with Conte’s Chelsea, that would have felt game over. Roma, though, had more and sensed the vulnerability and, when Kolarov pushed the ball past Cesar Azpilicueta, as the defender over-committed, he ran on to side-foot a rising effort that clipped off ­Andreas Christensen to finally beat Courtois. The dynamic changed. Nainggolan’s booming goalbound shot was charged down, Azpilicueta diverted another from Strootman, Gerson fired over, Kolarov overlapped with his low cross just cut out by Courtois ahead of Dzeko.

It was the kind of momentum that led to an inevitable goal. And what a goal as Fazio floated the ball into the area where Dzeko had cleverly pulled away from Christensen to thump a controlled left-footed volley past Courtois.


Then Tiemoue Bakayoko, apparently suffering a groin problem, clumsily conceded a free-kick which Kolarov curled in for Dzeko to steal between Christensen and Azpilicueta to glance in a header.

Now it seemed over but there was time and substitute Pedro was given the opportunity to cross with Hazard shrewdly finding space to steer a rare header away from ­Alisson. Improbably, given the capitulation that preceded it, Chelsea were level and, to Conte’s relief, it stayed that way.

But these are worrying times, again.



=====================


Guardian:

Eden Hazard double earns Chelsea draw after Edin Dzeko strikes twice for Roma

Chelsea 3 - 3 Roma


Dominic Fifield


Chelsea halted a losing run here but, even in the knowledge that their leadership of this group is maintained, Antonio Conte has not been hoodwinked by this result. There had been moments when his side gasped at the ferocity of Roma’s muscular approach, and periods when they were left flailing desperately in pursuit of the ball. The head coach will shudder at the memory of another opponent, this time crammed with former Manchester City players rather than Pep Guardiola’s current crop, dominating the play here so confidently.

Conte has made clear the issues he feels are jeopardising his team’s progress this season. A cluttered schedule is stretching a squad he had hoped would be reinforced even more extensively over the summer, with this the second time during the autumn that Chelsea have faced seven games in 23 days. He has suggested the regular hamstring problems are a direct result of an unfamiliar slog. By the end of a bruising match David Luiz was nursing a calf complaint, Tiémoué Bakayoko had hurt his groin, Gary Cahill was sporting a bandage around his jaw and Conte had been riled by José Mourinho’s perceived criticisms from Lisbon.


It was that kind of chaotic evening. There was also an admission from Conte that he had erred in his tactics, the decision to push David Luiz into central midfield having surrendered the initiative to expansive and impressive opponents. “It’s right to take the responsibility because I tried, on the one hand, to protect my team and make us more solid,” Conte said. “We had three important players out injured – [N’Golo] Kanté, [Danny] Drinkwater and [Victor] Moses – and this situation gives us problems. It’s three, not seven, but it’s still an emergency situation for us. But on the other hand we lost totally our style of football. I didn’t like this. We were 2-0 up, but we were never in control of the game.”

This, of course, is a scenario all the English clubs in the Champions League face and the reality is everyone – from hierarchy to coaching staff – knew what awaited this term, but one suspects the Italian will fall back on that familiar gripe until his players somehow rekindle some of last season’s pizzazz. At present, this team are looking distinctly leggy. The evidence was there in César Azpilicueta’s performance, last season’s most consistent performer again helpless as an opponent barged past him to score. On Saturday it was Wilfried Zaha exploiting space between Davide Zappacosta and the Spaniard. Here it was Aleksandar Kolarov, five minutes from the break, who ran round the outside of the defenders to fire in a shot that flicked up off Andreas Christensen for the goal that kickstarted Roma’s recovery. The fact they had trailed by two goals eight minutes from the break always felt deceptive. “When you are 2-0 up at home, you must win the game,” said Eden Hazard.

It was the Belgian who would eventually check Roma’s ambition, guiding a header down and beyond Roma’s goalkeeper Alisson Becker to secure a point 15 minutes from time, with that late reply at least an indication of Chelsea’s strength of character. It would have been easy for them to wilt once Roma’s overall dominance had enabled them to overhaul the home side, Edin Dzeko’s excellence having put them briefly ahead.

The Bosnian has been prolific since leaving Manchester City and waited an hour before making an impact here. The volley he belted from Federico Fazio’s lofted pass over Christensen was a strike of brutal splendour. “A fantastic goal, one of the best of my life,” the striker said. He would head his team’s third beyond Thibaut Courtois six minutes later from Kolarov’s free-kick, and then leap above the substitute Antonio Rüdiger only to steer a close-range header wide of the post. Roma’s head coach Eusebio Di Francesco held his head in his hands at that miss, though there was still so much to admire in his team’s display.

Regardless, his players will be licking their lips at the prospect of facing Chel sea again on Halloween at the Stadio Olimpico. There had been pace to their passing and movement, and aggression in the midfield bite of Kevin Strootman, Maxime Gonalons and Radja Nainggolan.


Their harrying riled Chelsea’s players, not least David Luiz whose reaction was to tear helter-skelter around the pitch as if in search of retribution, regardless of the pain in his left calf. The Brazilian had made his own startling contribution early on, marauding inside and attempting to thread a slide-rule pass through to Álvaro Morata just inside the penalty area. Juan Jesus blocked that but the Brazilian continued his run on to the loose ball and, with the visitors slow to react, bent a delicious first-time shot beyond Becker and into the corner from 25 yards.

It was the first of the flurry of goals, with Hazard duly scoring his first in this competition since March 2015 after Fazio’s block on Morata’s attempt had resulted in the ball spiralling up and over Juan Jesus in the centre. Hazard lurked behind the centre-half, having peeled off cleverly and unnoticed into space, and eagerly tucked away the half-volley.

Yet there was never security in the lead, or even a hint of authority in Chelsea’s performance. Some of the uncertainty still lingered after those recent defeats by Manchester City and Crystal Palace, and the doubts will remain even after this riotous draw. At least Atlético Madrid’s draw in Baku has left the initiative in the section with these two teams. The slog goes on.




============================



Mail:


Chelsea 3-3 Roma: Manchester City old boys Edin Dzeko and Aleksandar Kolarov rock Blues but Eden Hazard rescues a point for Antonio Conte's side


By Sami Mokbel for the Daily Mail


Antonio Conte must be sick of Manchester City. Three weeks after Pep Guardiola's side defeated Chelsea in their own backyard, two former City players tore the Blues apart.

Edin Dzeko scored twice — one a stunning volley — while Aleksandar Kolarov hit Roma's first and provided two assists as they pushed Chelsea to the limit.

The away side's contribution to this scintillating match only told half the story. There cannot have been a better sporting spectacle anywhere in Europe.


Not that will come as any consolation to a visibly tetchy Conte. Two goals up, his team somehow contrived to throw this match away. In the end they were indebted to Eden Hazard's 75th minute header, his second goal of a pulsating night.

But Conte refused to point the finger at his players, instead blaming his decision to alter tactics — and David Luiz's calf injury — during the second half as the reason behind his team's failure to see the game out.

'I like to be honest and, for sure, I didn't like the type of football that we did for a long part of the game,' said Conte.


'But it's right to take the responsibility for this because I tried, on the one hand, to protect my team and make us more solid, and to move Luiz into central midfield.

'But on the other hand we lost totally our knowledge and style of football. I didn't like this. At the end I think the result was fair but, in the first half, we were 2-0 up.

'But we weren't in control of the game. It's right to take the responsibility for this. But I repeat, sometimes, you have to find the right solution to try to protect your team. Sometimes it's good, sometimes it's bad. But you know very well our situation. It was good to draw because Roma deserved this result.


'I have to praise my players because they showed me big effort, big commitment tonight, otherwise we'd have lost.'

On a positive note, Chelsea halted their run of consecutive Premier League losses to City and Crystal Palace.

But Conte is already fearing the worst ahead of Saturday as Chelsea host Watford, looking to avoid a third straight league defeat.

Conte is prepared to tell anyone who wants to hear that his squad is lacking numbers.

Indeed, the Chelsea boss blasted Manchester United counterpart Jose Mourinho after he had appeared to call him a whinger.

Following United's 1-0 win at Benfica, Mourinho referred to coaches who 'moan and cry' about their injury problems.


In response to the jibe, Conte said: 'If he is speaking about me, I think he has to think about his team and start looking at himself, not others.

'A lot of time, Mourinho has to see what happened at Chelsea. A lot of time, also last season. He should think about his team.'

With Luiz and Tiemoue Bakayoko the latest to join Chelsea's walking wounded, sustaining respective calf and groin injuries here, Chelsea's injury crisis worsened. With N'Golo Kante, Victor Moses and Danny Drinkwater already unavailable, Conte is struggling for numbers.

He started with Alvaro Morata, just three weeks after suffering a hamstring injury. And central defender Luiz took up an unfamiliar role in midfield owing to Kante's own hamstring injury, allowing youngster Andreas Christensen to make his sixth start of the season.

The night all started so well for Chelsea as they stormed into a 2-0 lead thanks to goals from Luiz and Hazard.


Luiz's goal was exquisite, a 20- yard piledriver into the bottom corner. Juan Jesus' defending in the lead up to the goal, however, was anything but. That is not to take anything away from Luiz's cracking finish.

Hazard's goal was all about control, coolly stroking home on the half-volley after Morata's shot was deflected.

But Kolarov's deflected effort in the 37th minute changed the complexion of the game.

The way the former City defender stormed past Cesar Azpilicueta and Morata in the lead up to the goal would have infuriated Conte.

Chelsea should have been in cruise control, instead they were fearing the worst. And their concern was entirely justified as Dzeko stunned Stamford Bridge with a mesmerising second- half display.


First, in the 64th minute, he smashed an audacious volley past Thibaut Courtois. The technique was breathtaking. Utterly brilliant.

The away support erupted, as did the Roma bench. But those celebrations were somewhat tame compared to what followed six minutes later.

Kolarov must have been licking his lips when Bakayoko fouled Argentine Diego Perotti on the left-hand touchline.

And the Serbian's sweet left-foot cross was met by Dzeko's glancing header to send Roma into a 70th minute frenzy.

There was time for yet more drama when Hazard levelled for Chelsea just five minutes later, when he was allowed the freedom of the penalty area to nod home Pedro's cross.

In the aftermath, Conte sized up his walking wounded. So, too, it seems, has Mourinho.



==================================

Crystal Palace 1-2

Guardian:

Crystal Palace shock champions Chelsea as Wilfried Zaha secures vital win

C Palace 2 - 1 Chelsea

Dominic Fifield at Selhurst Park

Something remarkable happened here. At 3.11pm, albeit courtesy of a Chelsea player, Crystal Palace finally scored a league goal. And more significantly in the context of this club’s season as a whole, at just before 5pm when Andre Marriner’s whistle shrilled and the division’s whipping boys, previously pointless and goalless, had hoisted themselves not off the foot, but at least off the mark. “It is the start of the fightback,” offered Wilfried Zaha in the tunnel. The din still reverberating around the stands betrayed new-found belief.

This was a script that no one, least of all Chelsea’s champions, had envisaged being played out in this previously angst-ridden corner of south-east London. Yet for all the visitors’ huff and puff after the interval as they desperately pursued parity, it was a contest Roy Hodgson’s team deserved to claim for their industry alone. Zaha, on his first appearance since the opening day, secured only Palace’s second home league win against these opponents in 27 years with a goal clipped across Thibaut Courtois on the stroke of half-time, just reward for Mamadou Sakho’s dispossession of Willian in midfield and a cleverly slid pass for the makeshift striker to collect.

It was a goal Palace’s zest merited, and a concession that rather summed up Chelsea’s off-colour performance, all indecision and lethargy where Palace snapped and harried. Willian had dawdled on the ball but none of Davide Zappacosta, César Azpilicueta or David Luiz was sharp enough to suffocate the threat posed by the Palace’s talisman, Zaha.

The atmosphere in this arena had been lifted merely at confirmation that the Ivory Coast forward, together with Julián Speroni, was in the starting lineup. The sight of opponents gasping in pursuit of the ball merely raised expectations further. “Our start was poor,” grumbled the Chelsea manager, Antonio Conte. “When you play against Crystal Palace away you have to start with more personality otherwise you allow your opponent to take confidence.”

Given Palace are one of the more generous teams at home in the top-flight, and had been beaten in 11 of their previous 12 league games, that was damning of Chelsea. They had pilfered an equaliser, Tiémoué Bakayoko rising to nod in Cesc Fàbregas’ corner after seven minutes in arrears, but lacked the dynamism of last term in the absence of N’Golo Kanté. Victor Moses became the latest to succumb to hamstring trouble before the break and though Fàbregas struck the bar and Speroni did well to deny Marcos Alonso and Pedro, this was uncharacteristically slack throughout.

“The performance was not up to standard for whatever reason,” bemoaned the captain Gary Cahill before deflecting the most obvious excuse of the disruption caused by the international break. “We have many players who go away, but that’s part and parcel and we need to be livelier. Today it was the basics [that were wrong] and it was unlike us.”

Michy Batshuayi’s stroppy substitution, swearing to the heavens and then flinging his strapping down on the touchline, summed up the fractious mood. This was a second successive league defeat, and that magnificent performance at Atlético Madrid suddenly seems an age away. “But we have to find the will to fight,” added Conte. “This season will be very difficult and, for this reason we have to put 150% in. It’s not enough to put 100% in like last year. We want to try and be competitive in all competitions, but it won’t be easy.” His team now languish nine points off the leaders, Manchester City. A year ago, when they had embarked on that 13-game winning streak, the gap was three at this point.

Perhaps they had been shocked by Palace’s urgent opening, a feverish start which yielded that elusive first goal of the season. James McArthur had liberated Andros Townsend to the byline, with the winger pulling a cross back for Yohan Cabaye to collect on the run. David Luiz’s touch propelled the loose ball back on to the Frenchman who, almost inadvertently, poked it goalwards, but it took a deflection off Azpilicueta on the edge of the six-yard box to take it beyond the grasp of Courtois.

It had been 731 minutes, a drought stretching back to the final game of last season, since staff and supporters of the club last celebrated a league goal. All those dreadful records had been accumulating ever since as three managers tried and failed to find a way through, though by the end here, that was all forgotten.

Hodgson’s tactics, with Townsend and Zaha a skilful and rapid partnership and midfielders plugging gaps all over the pitch, had proved to be a masterstroke, the plan hatched over the two-week international break. They might have added further rewards before the end, with Patrick van Aanholt squirting a hurried shot wide of a gaping goal after Courtois could only palm out Townsend’s attempt, but it mattered not. They are off the mark and at the final whistle, life at the bottom of the league can never have been sweeter.

“You forget how stressful those last minutes of a football match are, so it’s quite nice to be sitting here relaxed knowing Chelsea can’t score now,” added Hodgson. “I’m off to Southampton to watch [next Saturday’s opponents] Newcastle tomorrow, so my wife, who is accompanying me, can’t say I don’t give her a day out …”

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Independent:

Crystal Palace stun Chelsea to end their goal drought and pick up their first Premier League points of the season

Crystal Palace 2 Chelsea 1: Wilfried Zaha returned to the fray for Palace and inspired the struggling side to an unlikely victory over Antonio Conte's title chasers

Ed Malyon Selhurst Park


There is life, after all, at Crystal Palace.

Wilfried Zaha is not the messiah but he is a very talented boy and the Ivorian’s performance mirrored that of his team on a day when the Eagles looked at times unstoppable but at others beset by a fragile self-confidence and, at the end, leggy and holding on.

Ultimately though, they were victorious. Zaha especially. Sidelined with injury as Palace fell to defeat after defeat, goals as rare as hen’s teeth, Zaha restored their bite. Chelsea’s shallow squad once again looked like it had bitten off more than it could chew.


This was a game that started with one team playing no striker and finished with neither bothering to. Zaha, out of position, led the line for his side in the absence of any senior alternative at the club and his bewitching trickery coupled with an under-appreciated tenacity marked him out once again as Palace’s most important player.

Zaha was not the only star for Palace on the day but he provided the majority of their dangerous moments and their winner on the cusp of half-time. By that point in an action-packed first half we had seen the Eagles break their 731-minute Premier League goal drought, ended in a manner as close to the proverbial ‘off-the-backside’ as possible without a ball touching someone’s derrière.

Yohan Cabaye’s prodded effort went in via two Chelsea defenders, eventually chalked up as an own goal by Cesar Azpilicueta, and while the ball left Thibaut Courtois rooted and helpless, Selhurst Park was on its feet, in raptures.


This ground is rarely better than when there are richer, more heralded London rivals in town. Such is life in the capital that nearly all of the sell-out crowd in SE25 will know a Chelsea fan who has paraded their success as Palace fizzle and pop below the Premier League’s elite.

It is only a few miles from the well-heeled environs that Chelsea are used to down to the somewhat grubbier charm of Norwood but that becomes a strength on days like these, and in front of a stadium that has not been this loud since Palace emphatically secured their Premier League status with a 4-0 win over Hull in the final home game of last season, they held on to a 2-1 win here to a backdrop of constant noise.

Chelsea dominated much of the second half and a ten-minute period after their 18th-minute equaliser. That goal, headed home by Tiemoue Bakayoko, had come from nothing with three white shirts outnumbered two-to-one by Palace defenders. But the Eagles’ fragile confidence was shattered and it took some time to rebuild.

Curiously, after impressing so much with their attacking in the early exchanges, what restored Palace’s spark with the scores level was a last-ditch block from Joel Ward, a defender told very plainly by Frank de Boer that he wasn’t good enough but sufficient here to prevent Eden Hazard - quiet on the day - from scoring at the last possible moment.

From that Palace rebuilt and regrew, as they have had to in many ways over the past month, and took the lead as time ticked down on the first period.

It all began with Mamadou Sakho on a day when much of the good play Palace put together had done so. The Frenchman probably doesn’t get the credit he deserves as a ball-player but Palace are counting points not compliments these days. Sakho strolled forward in possession again and failed to find Zaha but regained the ball, this time picking his man in the Bermuda Triangle between Davide Zappacosta, David Luiz and Cesar Azpilicueta. Wiggling through in that way he does, Zaha found himself one-on-one with Courtois and curled the ball inside the far post.


Had he been fully fit he probably would have had more. His legs clearly escaped him on two breakaway opportunities late in proceedings, so out of puff that his decision-making was affected. But he was still not replaced, Palace’s most vital outlet and emblematic superstar was too valuable, even at 60%.

And so the last act of this production would play out in the usual way; backs to the wall, hearts in mouths and, eventually, joy unbound. Had Patrick van Aanholt tucked a rebound into an empty net after Zaha’s shot was parried then it needn’t have been such a palpitating finish. Had Zaha been fully fit he probably would have completed the job himself.

But the whos, whats and whys didn’t matter so much on the whistle here. The points did. The goals did and, now, the hope does.

If we are honest, nobody expects Crystal Palace to survive in the Premier League this season and, looking at the maths, you can see why.

But there were 26,000 people at Selhurst Park today who saw plenty of reason to believe. And Wilfried Zaha is only one part of that.


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Mail:

Crystal Palace 2-1 Chelsea: Eagles secure shock first victory of the season as Cesar Azpilicueta's own goal and Wilfried Zaha's strike stuns the champions

By Kieran Gill for The Mail on Sunday

They're Crystal Palace, and they score when they want. After seven successive losses, Selhurst Park's supporters seized the opportunity to sing a song they had all but forgotten.

Not only did Roy Hodgson's striker-less side get their first goal of the season, they got two — against the champions in Antonio Conte's Chelsea. No longer goalless, no longer pointless.

They are officially off the mark, five months to the day since they last scored and inflicted a defeat in the Premier League. Maybe they aren't dead, after all.

For Conte and Chelsea, this felt like Sod's law. They had to be the ones to be beaten by the team that could not win. They had to concede twice against the side that could not score.

They were without Alvaro Morata and N'Golo Kante for this trip across the Thames but that should not have resulted in them being second-best all afternoon.

Palace went into this game having been thumped 5-0 and 4-0 by title chasers in Manchester City and Manchester United respectively. Chelsea have lost ground.

Conte was not happy with either of the goals his side conceded in south London.

The first will not grace the contenders' list for goal of the season but was crucial for Palace's confidence after a Yohan Cabaye shot scrappily hit off Cesar Azpilicueta and went in.

Palace chairman Steve Parish had called on the footballing gods to give them the rub of the green in his pre-match programme notes. They got it there and then.

The second was down to the brilliance of Wilfried Zaha, who was appearing for the first time since August 12. He beat Azpilicueta and Davide Zappacosta, then produced the type of finish that Palace had been missing all season.

It gave them a lead they would restore on the stroke of half-time after Tiemoue Bakayoko had levelled. How Palace have missed Zaha and his X-factor.


Speaking afterwards, Zaha said: 'It's a dream, managing to beat Chelsea at home. Definitely, this is the start of a fightback — now we've got more confidence we can start to climb up the table.

'I'm so tired but it was all worth it for the win. We had to win.'

The white shirts of Chelsea were on the back foot from the off. After 630 minutes of not scoring this season, Palace came close to righting that wrong through Zaha almost immediately.

Andros Townsend scampered up the left wing after wrong-footing defender David Luiz and crossed to Zaha. He found space to shoot but keeper Thibaut Courtois kept it goal-less.

The Premier League champions were all over the place and Palace got what they deserved — a goal.

Jeffrey Schlupp played in Townsend, who cut the ball back for Cabaye. He chested it down and fumbled it beyond Courtois via a deflection off Azpilicueta. It was far from pretty. Did Palace care? Not one bit.

Then, a kick in the teeth for the home side. From their first chance, Chelsea equalised.

Cesc Fabregas floated a corner over, Bakayoko lost his marker, Patrick van Aanholt, and headed beyond Julian Speroni. The defending was dire.


It was heading for half-time when Zaha decided to celebrate his comeback with a brilliantly taken goal.

Mamadou Sakho slid the ball through before Zaha weaved between Zappacosta and Azpilicueta to slide it beyond Courtois. It was Palace 2, Chelsea 1 at the break.

Zaha's strike sent Hodgson wild in the dugout. Finally, his team had scored not once, but twice. What's that saying about buses again?

The omens weren't good for Chelsea. They had lost six of their previous seven previous Premier League games when trailing at half-time under Conte.


They had the crossbar shaking soon after the start of the second half when Fabregas unleashed a shot from 30 yards.

You could sense the nervousness in the crowd. Palace were sitting back, trying to park the bus. It felt risky, with them relying on counter-attacks to get out of their own half.

As a last throw of the dice, Conte threw on Charly Musonda, the youngster who turns 21 on Sunday who had ranted on social media about a lack of opportunities. He had his chance, but it wasn't to be.

Finally, in their search for a Premier League point or goal, Palace succeeded at the eighth time of asking. They're still bottom, but the Eagles have landed.


CRYSTAL PALACE (4-4-2): Speroni 7; Ward 7.5, Dann 8, Sakho 8, Van Aanholt 6.5; McArthur 8 (Fosu-Mensah 85), Cabaye 8 (Riedewald 86), Milivojevic 7.5, Schlupp 7.5 (Puncheon 75, 6); Zaha 9, Townsend 8.5

Subs not used: Tomkins, Kaikai, Sako, Henry

Goals: Azpilicueta (11og), Zaha (45)

Booked: Dann, Milivojevic

Manager: Roy Hodgson 7


CHELSEA (3-4-3): Courtois 5.5; Azpilicueta 5, Luiz 5.5, Cahill 5.5; Moses 6 (Zappacosta 40, 5), Fabregas 6, Bakayoko 6, Alonso 5.5; Willian 4.5 (Musonda 65, 5.5), Batshuayi 4 (Pedro 57, 6), Hazard 5

Subs not used: Caballero, Rudiger, Christensen, Scott

Goals: Bakayoko (18)

Booked: Bakayoko

Manager: Antonio Conte 5.5

Referee: Andre Marriner 6

Man of the match: Wilfried Zaha

Manchester City 0-1

Telegraph:

Chelsea 0 Manchester City 1

Pep Guardiola's side dominate disappointing Blues as Kevin De Bruyne magic seals win

Sam Wallace

There are mistakes in the history of certain clubs and then there is Chelsea’s disastrous decision to sell Kevin De Bruyne, among the few players in the world who can determine the outcome of a game with a moment of brilliance, and a man who seems destined to haunt them over and again.

De Bruyne was the match-winner for Manchester City in this peak of the Premier League showdown, a collision between two of the best teams in the competition although, on this day, it was only really the visitors who showed up. They deserved their victory, dominating the game up until the moment that De Bruyne slammed a left-foot shot past Thibaut Courtois to win the game for a City side who had come forward relentlessly for most of the match.

The Belgium international was the pick of a fine City team and in the fleeting moments in which he took a return pass from Gabriel Jesus and advanced into a pocket of space on the edge of the Chelsea area, the outcome seemed inevitable. City finally had their big gun in range of the target and the level at which De Bruyne has now reached means that he rarely misses.

Pep Guardiola’s team sit top of the league, a goal better off than Manchester United who also have 19 points, and have now seen off Chelsea in one of the most demanding fixtures of the season, even without the recently injured Sergio Aguero. Their manager was buoyant afterwards, cheerfully discussing everything from Fabian Delph’s renaissance to the Catalan independence referendum, forever “so, so happy” but now with much greater justification.

City are playing according to the Guardiola masterplan, a team who insist on pressing their opponents high up the pitch and, according to their manager, setting out their stall from the first moment that, in his words, “these guys have come here to win”.

He promised to prosecute the same approach at Old Trafford, White Hart Lane and the Emirates with the confidence now high in the players that this can work for them. In Guardiola’s words it is “suicide by stupid guys” to play high up the pitch without pressing the ball, and he had the players willing to do it in his hard-running front three.  To then go on to win you need footballers as gifted as De Bruyne and David Silva, but then credit also goes to the unflinching Fernandinho in midfield and Delph, who had a very good game at left-back.

By contrast Chelsea were a disappointment, especially their own match-winner-in-chief Eden Hazard, starting his first league game of the season but substituted before the end.
His replacement, Pedro, immediately looked a more vibrant option and there was a much better last 20 minutes for the home side, with City finally denied the right to run the show.

Chelsea lost Alvaro Morata to injury with just 34 minutes on the clock, the striker who had six goals in six league games reporting a hamstring problem that he did not wish to make worse. He was replaced by Willian, who formed a partnership with Hazard that made few inroads and only at the end, when Conte switched to 3-4-3 did Chelsea push their visitors back. They might have pinched an equaliser but they certainly would not have deserved one.

It is hard not to ask afresh the question as to how De Bruyne, now arguably the league’s pre-eminent footballer, and certainly its best midfielder on ­current form, was finally allowed to leave Stamford Bridge in August 2014 for a mere £18 million.

That was a different Chelsea manager who was having different arguments over different players, but it is a decision that continues to cost Chelsea. Conte sidestepped that particular thicket of thorns, instead preferring just to say that he thought his players had given their very best, although if that is their best then it will not be enough to ensure they retain the title.

It was hard to think of a single major chance they created when they were in need of the equaliser and the system that reaped such rewards last season was strangely ineffective with Victor Moses on the bench. Conte adjusted his usual 3-4-3 formation to accommodate a five-man midfield in which Cesc Fabregas, Tiemoue Bakayoko and N’Golo Kante all featured, yet they seemed just to fall ever deeper in face of the onslaught. By the end of the first half they had made just over a third of the passes that City had, and generally looked like an away team trying to counter-attack.

There were a couple of moments when Hazard slowed to a standstill and hovered a foot over the ball, promising a defence-splitting dash forward, but he never quite delivered. Before he was replaced, he only really had a sight of goal after the hour when a free-kick he had won was clipped left to him and he hit a shot from a difficult angle that Ederson blocked.

At the other end, Marcos Alonso, one of Chelsea’s better performers, got a block on a David Silva shot before City scored a minute later. The move, starting with Nicolas Otamendi and going from De Bruyne to Jesus and back again, before the Belgian set the cross-hairs and swept the ball past Courtois.

City should have had another with six minutes left when Jesus caught the ball true on the left side of the area and Antonio Rudiger set his neck muscles in time to head the shot out of the ­goalmouth. Although Chelsea raised their game at the end it was hard to think of a single chance that was created other than an Andreas Christensen header over the bar late on when it was at last City’s turn to dig in and keep their shape.

On the touchline, as the pressure increased in the closing stages, Guardiola demanded even that his players chest Chelsea’s crosses into the area rather than head them away and invite more pressure. Yet right to the end they remained steadfast in their belief that the ball must be passed and not lumped out of defence. The City manager is not easily pleased and his mood afterwards suggested that this team are close to the side he has always envisaged.

======================

Observer:

Chelsea sunk by Kevin De Bruyne winner for Manchester City
Chelsea 0 - 1 Man City

Daniel Taylor at Stamford Bridge

Perhaps the most alarming thought for the other teams with aspirations of winning the Premier League is that Manchester City could produce this show of strength, passing the ball so elegantly and comprehensively outplaying the reigning champions, without even being able to call upon the player who is one goal short of establishing himself as their joint all-time record scorer.

It is a scary thought for the teams chasing Pep Guardiola’s side at the top of the league and if Chelsea had suspected Sergio Agüero’s absence might work in their favour they were quickly made to realise that was a mistake. The days have passed when an injury to Agüero might cause City lasting disruption. They were the better team in every department and, by the end, it was starting to feel like a trick of the imagination that they had trailed Chelsea by 15 points last season.

Chelsea might do well just to stay in touch this season bearing in mind the imbalance of talent on show here and the latest evidence that the club were far too hasty in allowing Kevin De Bruyne to leave Stamford Bridge. De Bruyne is at a level now where he can justifiably be ranked among the world’s elite footballers. He was not the only player in City’s colours to excel and an argument could legitimately be made that it was the most complete team display, from back to front, of the Guardiola era. Yet it was De Bruyne who provided the game’s decisive moment.

The winning goal was another outstanding addition to the Belgian’s portfolio, aided and abetted by David Silva’s enduring brilliance, the penetrative qualities of Leroy Sané and Raheem Sterling in the wide positions and the emergence of Gabriel Jesus as a player who can trouble the most accomplished defences. The celebrations at the end made it clear Guardiola and his players considered this more than just an ordinary victory.

They have now won eight games on the bounce in all competitions and, though it will always be their front players who attract most of the attention, it should not be overlooked that City, with Fabian Delph flourishing as a stand-in left-back, have beefed up their defence and now have a goalkeeper, Ederson, who is a clear upgrade on Claudio Bravo. Everybody knows the aesthetic qualities of Guardiola’s teams. Yet here, too, was a determination whenever they did lose the ball to get it back as quickly as possible. It was reminiscent of Barcelona’s tactics in Guardiola’s peak years – and that is the ultimate compliment, as far as his current club are concerned.

Chelsea looked sluggish in comparison. They rallied late on but a goal at that stage would have been an injustice and their disappointment was exacerbated by the hamstring injury that deprived them of Álvaro Morata for most of the match. Morata lasted only 35 minutes, leaving Antonio Conte with another opportunity to reiterate his complaints about the fatigue caused by their midweek trip to Madrid. To be fair to Chelsea’s manager, he did not make as big a deal of it as might have been anticipated.

It was true that City played with greater energy but, more than anything, they exuded the confidence of a side that had scored 16 times without reply in their last three league fixtures. They were quickly into their rhythm, using the full width of the pitch, with Sané and Sterling under instructions to cling to the touchline and push back the two Chelsea wing-backs. Silva seemed to be at the heart of everything and Fernandinho, a player who does not get a sliver of the credit he deserves, had another fine game.

There are not many teams who will back themselves here to out-pass the hosts but City defended with a high line, pressed for the ball and moved it with a speed and accuracy that was beyond their opponents. Chelsea were pinned back at times and when they did break out they did not keep the ball long enough to build up any sustained pressure. Eden Hazard, starting his first league game of the season, faded after a bright start. There was the sight of N’Golo Kanté misplacing what should have been a routine six-yard pass and putting the ball straight out for a throw-in. Willian found it difficult to make any difference after replacing Morata and there was the clear sense that Cesc Fàbregas is no longer the player he was. The passing statistics told their own story: Chelsea had only 38% of the possession.

It was rare to see Chelsea being given this treatment on their own ground and when the goal arrived from De Bruyne’s left foot, midway through the second half, it was the culmination of a ten-minute spell when City had at least four opportunities to take the lead. De Bruyne’s one-two with Jesus was quick and incisive. As soon as De Bruyne moved on to the return pass, it was clear he was going to let fly. Twenty yards out, it was a beauty and City had the goal that propelled them back to the top of the league. They are going to take some shifting.

==========================

Mail:

Chelsea 0-1 Manchester City: Kevin De Bruyne brilliantly fires Pep Guardiola's side to victory in hugely impressive performance against champions
By Rob Draper for The Mail on Sunday

The bass line of the stereo in the Manchester City dressing room was still thumping loudly, clearly audible a good hour after the final whistle. Fernandinho is normally in control of the playlist and the Brazilian clearly felt his team had something to celebrate.
His manager seemed to agree, Pep Guardiola embracing his coaching staff at the end with an intensity which suggested that, whilst he repeats the mantra that it is far too early to project their ultimate trajectory, he feels this team is on the right track.
And if the prize will ultimately go to those prepared to be bold and idealism really does trump pragmatism, then Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City will replace Chelsea as champions. No team in this league, not even the free-scoring Manchester United, seeks the initiative and demands the ball as they do.

And it will seemingly take more than the erratic driving of an Amsterdam cabbie to thwart their plans.
No Sergio Aguero, no problem: without his Argentine centre forward Guardiola still set out to take on the reigning champions in their backyard, outpass and outplay them, and go home with the spoils.
If not always at their glittering best – especially in a first half in which they conceded possession too readily – City held true to Guardiola’s idea of football.
They didn’t reach perfection but they did constantly aspire towards it. And in doing, they were eventually rewarded. If this was a stress test of City’s high line, Guardiola’s philosophy and their all-round robustness, then they passed it with something to spare.
‘We try with Manchester City to feel like a club, to convince the club we're able to go wherever and play our game,’ said Guardiola afterwards. ‘Of course you have to adapt to your opponents but we showed in the first minute that we were coming here to win the game. That is what I want to give to the club and that is what we did in this game.

‘We played with courage, to keep the ball, to make high pressing. We play so high. John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi were amazing making the line high. We are able to do that because our high pressing is good. It's suicide if there's no pressure on the ball. Even last season when we came here we weren't able to win. I'm so satisfied because we won in the way we tried from the beginning.’
Yet it didn’t always seem as though it would end that way. The narrative arc of the game was invested with suspense to suggest a potential alternative conclusion. For much of this game it seemed the wiliness of Antonio Conte would smother the idealism of Guardiola.
No matter that he was at home, once Conte had unluckily lost his only trusted centre forward in Alvaro Morata to a first half hamstring strain injury, he was prepared to sit this one out with no recognised striker on the pitch. Only when City did take the lead was Michy Batshuayi introduced.

Conte had signalled his intent from the off, with Cesar Azpilcueta preferred over Victor Moses.
This would be no gung-ho attempt to match City’s attacking prowess.
With his midfield three and with Anders Christiansen a natural born leader at the back, Chelsea were happy to harry City on the counter and did so quite effectively.
Conte’s reasoning was that, coming so soon after the Atletico game, Chelsea couldn’t possible match the intensity and pressing of City for 90 minutes and had to sit deep.
‘You can go very high to press and play a game with great intensity, but you must do this for the whole game,’ he said.
‘In another case, you must be disciplined, try to close the space and try to exploit the space behind the defenders.’
You wondered whether his praise for City – ‘after the transfer market, they improved a lot, they strengthened; it's right to complement them’ – was a veiled message to the Chelsea board and a management of expectations for this season.
For, though Chelsea are champions, they played as though they know their place in the new order.

Conte’s frustrations may well be shared by Chelsea’s Sporting Director Michael Emenalo, but with a slight different twist.
His concern must be that two players he plucked as youngsters for Chelsea’s future are on course to be the stars of this season for direct opponents: Romelu Lukaku at Manchester United and Kevin De Bruyne at City.
He shone on his return, none more so than when on 67 minutes Otamendi brought the ball out of defence and found the Belgian.
De Bruyne played his first touch to Gabriel Jesus before receiving a return ball and using the space he was afforded to strike a delightful, powerful, curling shot across Thibaut Courtois.
The trajectory of his run allowed him to continue into the arms of the celebrating City fans. By then, it was well deserved.

Yes, Chelsea had threatened on the counter before Morata’s withdrawal and with the quick and clever reverse-pass free-kick from Fabregas on 60 minutes that found Hazard were close to scoring.
But the overall momentum was with City. Raheem Sterling consistently had the better of Marcos Alonso and Gary Cahill. David Silva almost surprised Thibaut Courtois with a snatched shot on 30 minutes; and the Belgian goalkeeper had to react smartly again on 45 minutes when Fernandinho met De Bruyne’s corner firmly.
And they might have won by a healthier margin, when Gabriel Jesus almost decapitated Antonio Rudiger with a fierce shot, which the Chelsea defender headed off the line on 85 minutes.
No matter: the result, Guardiola’s first win over Chelsea, rather than the score-line, was what mattered. And it sent a decisive message as the first quarter of the season concluded.

Chelsea:

Courtois 7, Rudiger 7, Christensen 7, Cahill 6, Azpilicueta 7, Kante 7.5, Bakayoko 6.5(Batshuayi), Fabregas 6.5, Alonso 6.5, Hazard 7 (Pedro), Morata 6 (Willian)

Unused subs:
Caballero, Moses, Kenedy, Zappacosta,
Bookings:
Goals:

Manchester City:

Ederson 8.5, Walker 7, Stones 7.5, Otamendi 7, Delph 7, Fernandinho 7, Sterling 7, De Bruyne 9 (Danilo), Silva 8.5 (B. Silva), Sane 7 (Gundogan), Jesus 8

Unused subs:
Bravo, Mangala, Zinchenko, Toure
Bookings: Fernandinho, Otamendi
Goals: De Bruyne (67)

Referee: Martin Atkinson

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