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.

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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.


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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.


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