West Brom 1-1

Independent:

West Bromwich Albion 1 Chelsea 1

Victor Anichebe punishes Chelsea’s dearth of firepower

A game Jose Mourinho's team should have won easily ended with two points squandered by the Premier League leaders
Sam Wallace
They have conquered Manchester City and made a virtue of being the team that has come good late on, but tonight they looked bereft of the killer instinct that served them so well in recent weeks. The old problems came back to haunt Mourinho: the absence of a striker capable of putting opposition away, a critical defensive lapse as they tried to see out victory.
It was not the sleek, bespoke performances that Mourinho’s team turned out to beat City. Instead he was forced to throw on the inexperienced Mohamed Salah at the end to chase the lead having previously adjusted his team to close the game down. Chelsea’s goal came from Branislav Ivanovic and it looked like it might be enough to win the match until substitute Victor Anichebe struck within the last four minutes of normal time.
It is a different Mourinho these days, to the one that considered each and every defeat as evidence that the universe was out of kilter and forces were conspiring against him. Afterwards he blamed his team’s “lack of personality” in allowing themselves to be dominated by an otherwise fairly nascent West Brom team in the closing stages of the match.
“A ‘ready’ team [ie, an experienced team], a complete team kills this game,” Mourinho said. “Two-nil. Goodbye. We didn’t.” He is playing that tune again, the one that says Chelsea are not yet at a stage where they can win the title, and this he claimed was vindication for that theory. He was right in saying that his side fell away badly, but why that was the case was not obvious.
Chelsea are still top but a win for Arsenal against Manchester United tomorrow will restore them to that position and Manchester City can also overhaul them if they beat Sunderland.  Having dominated the first half, Chelsea struggled to put West Brom away and found themselves on the back foot. They needed a telling moment from Eden Hazard or Oscar or Samuel Eto’o but none was forthcoming. Instead there was a strange row between Ivanovic and Petr Cech and then, eventually, the equaliser from Anichebe.
He had been sent on by Pepe Mel to try to give some life to a West Brom attack that looked like it might be flat-lining by the beginning of the second half. His team had done their defensive work well and then they conceded in injury-time at the end of the first half with sloppy marking from a corner.
It does not change the fact that Mel is still yet to win any of his five games in charge of West Brom since taking over, but this comeback was a great improvement on what might have been after a moribund first half. He declared himself “proud” of his players after the game and they are off for a break in Spain which their new manager described as his “pre-season.”
In a drab and unremarkable first half in which Chelsea failed to spark, only Willian, of Mourinho’s attacking four, really delivered and his contribution was more about the running and energy than creativeness.
It was a dreadful goal that West Brom conceded from Willian’s corner on the right. David Luiz angled his run to the front post and flicked the ball on to no-one in particular with his left foot. Breaking from a position around the penalty spot, Ivanovic was completely unmarked – Gareth McAuley’s fault - when he struck the ball on the half-volley past Ben Foster from close range.
Until then it had been Chelsea who had the better of it. But not by much. Hazard was well-marshalled on the left wing, although doing so earned Morgan Amalfitano a booking late in the first half. Really, Mourinho’s team were reduced to a few long range shots, the best from Willian, and one clever turn by Eto’o that left Craig Dawson on his backside. Claudio Yacob got in the way of the cut-back.
Yacob and James Morrison shielded the West Brom defence from the usual Chelsea pressure and by and large they did a good job of it. Albion’s problem was creating anything of note at the other end. Only once in the first half did they really get clear, when Amalfitano deceived Cesar Apilicueta down the right and crossed for Saido Berahino to head the ball down. Thievy Bifouma’s instinct to take his first touch away from goal felt wrong and Chris Brunt’s shot was wide.
Even without John Terry in the side, it required something of quality to breakdown the Gary Cahill and Luiz partnership and, in the first half, the home side did not get close to that.  It took well into the second half for West Brom to get their first shot on target. They lost Yacob to injury and in the early stages of the second half there was no clear idea of how they might get back in it.
It was Thievy who had the first decent chance with around 15 minutes left as West Brom finally managed to apply some pressure. The ball dropped to him in the area in the right channel from a Brunt corner that was flicked on but the striker, on loan from Espanyol, snatched at the ball and dragged it across goal. Brunt did little better minutes later with a chance from the other side.
All they had in their favour was that Chelsea seemed incapable of putting the game away. Hazard dallied on a break down the left side of the West Brom box and failed to anticipate Ramires’ run into the six yard box. With 12 minutes remaining, Mourinho withdrew Oscar and replaced him with John Obi Mikel, making clear his intentions to shut the game down.
Before then he had given Fernando Torres his first run out, as a substitute for Eto’o, since the Spanish striker’s knee ligament injury against Manchester United on 19 January. Mel refreshed his attack with Anichebe and Matej Vydra. West Brom looked at their most dangerous from set-pieces and the more the pressure grew, the more of those they won.
In the build-up to the equaliser, Cahill was injured and had only just hobbled back onto the pitch when Berahino picked up the ball on the left side and angled a ball into the near side of the box. Having dealt with the pressure time and again in the second half, on this occasion Cech came for the ball and hesitated. Luiz allowed Anichebe to get in front of him and the striker angled a fine header past the Cech.
Having originally intended to bring on Frank Lampard and go further into shutdown mode, Mourinho changed his mind and called upon Salah to try to turn the game which had finally opened up. There was a late corner for Chelsea that should never have been given when replays showed that Ben Foster had managed to keep the ball in play. But not for the first time, Chelsea found themselves unable to craft an attempt on goal.

West Bromwich Albion (4-2-3-1): Foster; Reid, McAuley, Dawson, Ridgewell; Yacob (Mulumbu 63), Morrison; Amalfitano (Anichebe 73), Thievy (Vydra 77), Brunt; Berahino.

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Luiz, Azpilicueta; Ramires (Salah 88), Matic; Willian, Oscar (Mikel 78), Hazard; Eto'o (Torres 69).

Match rating 6/10.
Man of the match Willian.
Referee A Taylor.
Attendance 24,327.

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

Guardian:

West Brom's Victor Anichebe strikes late to halt Chelsea title charge

Daniel Taylor at The Hawthorns

For Chelsea it finished as a night of regret, with José Mourinho complaining they lacked "a little bit of a lack of personality". There was an unexpected show of vulnerability from the Premier League leaders in the final quarter of an hour as they were pinned back by a team from the relegation zone, and that came as a jolt given the qualities of endurance that had taken Mourinho's side to the summit in the first place.
Chelsea's carelessness in those exchanges seemed incongruous to the rest of the match but West Brom deserve acclaim for their late adventure, culminating in Victor Anichebe's 87th-minute header and a point that will be of huge satisfaction for the home team. Pepe Mel is still looking for his first victory after five games in the job and West Brom have won only once since Steve Clarke was removed as manager two months ago but they were rewarded for not giving up against the most parsimonious team in the league.
For long spells Chelsea had looked to possess an impenetrable line in front of Petr Cech. Nemanja Matic was a formidable opponent to get past, even to reach Chelsea's back four, and Cech had remarkably little to do for the first 75 minutes. Yet Chelsea did not show enough attacking enterprise to add to Branislav Ivanovic's goal late in the first half and Mourinho made the point afterwards that their inability to increase the lead encouraged the late flurry from their opponents.
This was not a night when Eden Hazard was able to maintain his recent form or Oscar showed his ability to deliver the killer pass. Chelsea had looked in utter control for most of the night, without ever reaching a level of performance that went above six out of ten. Sometimes it dipped below that level and towards the end they looked decidedly ragged.
All the same it was strange to see the sudden transformation. Anichebe had come on as a 73rd-minute substitute for Morgan Amalfitano and his impact unsettled Gary Cahill and David Luiz, both of whom had hitherto been superb. Soon afterwards Thievy Bifouma and Chris Brunt flashed shots narrowly wide from promising positions. Gareth McAuley put a header over the crossbar and Chelsea, missing the injured John Terry, were defending far too deeply by the time Saido Berahino swung over a cross from the left, checking back on to his right foot, and Anichebe's header picked out the corner.
The goal lifts West Brom out of the bottom three and denies Chelsea a four-point lead at the top of the table. Mourinho must wonder, once again, where his team could be if they had a more charismatic centre-forward. Yet the bottom line is they had an off night and Willian's dynamicperformance stood out in part because none of the team's other attackers could match him.
Mourinho brought on the fit-again Fernando Torres and removed Samuel Eto'o but it made little difference and the Spaniard finished the night arguing with the home side's goalkeeper, Ben Foster. Then Ivanovic angrily jabbed a finger at one of the linesmen. Cech tried to calm his team-mate down but Ivanovic, in one of those red-mist moments, is not an easy man to control and it ended with an argument between the two players. From a position of control, it was unusual to see Chelsea lose their way in this manner.
They had taken the lead just before half-time when Willian delivered a corner from the right and Ivanovic provided another demonstration of how dangerous he can be from set pieces. David Luiz helped the ball across the six-yard area and Ivanovic was next to react at the far post, sweeping in a first-time shot.
Chelsea had threatened only sporadically before then, lacking penetration in the telling areas, and the outstanding chance of the first half actually dropped to Bifouma, on his first league start for West Brom since arriving on loan from Espanyol. Berahino's header was cushioned expertly into Bifouma's path, after Amalfitano had eluded César Azpilicueta on the right, but the 21-year-old did not appear to have the self-belief to take on the volley. Trying to control it in a congested penalty area just gave Chelsea's defenders the time to recover and the chance was gone.
That seemed to be the signal for Mourinho's players to shake their heads clear. They had arrived here on the back of seven clean sheets from their previous nine games, whereas West Brom had only one win in their last 16 league matches. Another side in that position might have wilted after Ivanovic's goal but West Brom persevered in a manner that suggests their poor results have not inflicted too much damage on their confidence.
They subjected Chelsea to some intense pressure in that 15-minute spell and will head off for a mid-season break to Spain in a much better frame of mind. Chelsea, two points clear, will consider it a missed opportunity.

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

Times:

West Bromwich Albion 1 Chelsea 1

Chelsea stumble as Victor Anichebe strikes for West Brom
     
Oliver Kay Chief Football Correspondent

It seems that the rarefied air at the top of the Barclays Premier League is causing vertigo. Just as Manchester City and Arsenal have stumbled on reaching the summit in the past fortnight, so Chelsea suffered last night , losing their footing, retreating anxiously and paying the price when Victor
Anichebe equalised for West Bromwich Albion with three minutes to go.
It was no more and no less than either team deserved. West Brom barely got going until the final 20 minutes, but, as even José Mourinho admitted, Chelsea had not done enough to win, either.
After taking the lead through another Branislav Ivanovic goal in first-half stoppage time, Chelsea dropped farther and farther back towards their penalty area and were punished when Anichebe, a substitute, headed Saido Berahino’s cross past Petr Cech.
Mourinho blamed a “lack of personality” for his team’s inability either to extend their lead, as they had done in recent wins away to Southampton and Hull City, or to protect it, as they did to such great effect away to Manchester City eight days earlier. If ever there was an occasion when they missed the injured John Terry, this was it, at least once West Brom switched towards a more direct approaching in the closing stages.
The draw took West Brom out of the bottom three, albeit only on goal difference before this evening’s matches, and provided Pepe Mel with his most rewarding evening so far in a difficult introduction to the Premier League.
That the result was earned after a reversion to more functional approach in the second half —Youssouf Mulumbu in midfield, Anichebe lending some weight to the forward line — demonstrated that Mel is finding a need to be pragmatic as desperation grows among the teams at the bottom.
West Brom have won only once in 17 matches in all competitions since November 2 — a run that includes the final weeks of Steve Clarke’s tenure, Keith Downing’s spell as interim coach and now five games under Mel — and there were times when a lack of belief was evident. Ultimately, though, there was encouragement to be drawn from finding a way back into the game and from the satisfaction that they, unlike so many other teams of late, had found a way to contain Eden Hazard.
“Of course it is the best performance we have had,” Mel said . “It was not a complete performance, but I’m proud of my players. It was good to have different halves: in the first half good defence and only two chances for Chelsea; in the second half good transition, good attack and defence, good mentality.”
Ivanovic’s goal, in first-half stoppage time, followed 45 minutes in which Chelsea took time to get going before building momentum as the interval approached. With Hazard quieter than usual, much of that momentum came through Willian, always looking for the ball, always prepared to try something a little different in his loose right-sided role, helped by Ivanovic’s willingness to join him on the overlap. Midway through the first half, receiving a pass from Ivanovic, Willian shuffled into space and struck a right-foot shot just wide of the near post. There was another Willian shot that flew over the crossbar, but otherwise Mel must have felt that his team had contained Chelsea’s threat comfortably until Willian’s corner was flicked across the six-yard box by David Luiz and driven past Ben Foster by Ivanovic.
In one sense, it was harsh on West Brom, but they had offered little going forward, with a belt-and-braces approach leaving little support for Thievy Bifouma and Berahino. Those two have raw pace and talent, but there was a lack of poise about their attacks. Only once in the first half did the ball drop for either player in the penalty area and Thievy’s touch was a strange one, taking him away from goal, before he set up Chris Brunt, who shot wide.
Mourinho said that Chelsea had the chances to kill the game early in the second half, but, in truth, there was only one, when Willian threaded another clever pass through to Samuel Eto’o, whose shot was well saved by Foster.
Willian had another long-range effort saved, but the outcome looked inevitable until West Brom, having introduced more physical presence in Mulumbu, Anichebe and Matej Vydra, began to ruffle Chelsea’s feathers in the closing stages.
Finally, there was an onslaught of sorts, with Gary Cahill, Luiz and the rest of the back four seeming not to realise that they were playing into their opponents’ hands by dropping to the edge of their own penalty area.
From a series of diagonal balls, crosses and corners, the ball began to drop at the feet of West Brom’s forwards. Brunt threatened twice and Thievy flashed a shot across the face of the goal before the pressure finally told when Berahino’s inswinging cross was glanced past Cech by Anichebe.
It was a goal that delighted the locals, but no doubt there will also have been joy in North London, Manchester and even on Merseyside. It is one thing to get to the top. It is another, evidently, to try to stay there.

West Bromwich Albion (4-2-3-1): B Foster — S Reid, G McAuley, C Dawson, L Ridgewell — C Yacob (sub: Y Mulumbu, 63min), J Morrison — M Amalfitano (sub: V Anichebe, 73), T Bifouma (sub: M Vydra, 78), C Brunt — S Berahino. Substitutes not used: B Myhill, D Lugano, G Dorrans, Z Gera. Booked: Amalfitano, Yacob, Anichebe.

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): P Cech — B Ivanovic, G Cahill, D Luiz, C Azpilicueta — Ramires (sub: M Salah, 89), N Matic — Willian, Oscar (sub: J O Mikel, 79), E Hazard — S Eto’o (sub: F Torres, 69). Substitutes not used: M Schwarzer, A Cole, F Lampard, A Schürrle. Booked: Willian, Ivanovic, Luiz, Matic.
Referee: A Taylor.

Chelsea’s past four defeats or score draws have all involved them conceding a decisive late goal, a fate they rarely suffered during José Mourinho’s first spell in charge
How Mourinho’s men are paying the penalty for late lapses
87 Minute Victor Anichebe scored last night to give West Brom a 1-1 draw
118 Minute in which Ki Sung Yueng struck Sunderland’s Capital One Cup winner
90 Minute when Chelsea conceded to Oussama Assaidi in Stoke City’s 3-2 Premier League victory at the Britannia Stadium
87 Minute Mohamed Salah, who has since joined Chelsea, scored Basle’s winning goal against them in a Champions League match in Switzerland

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

Telegraph:

West Bromwich Albion 1 Chelsea 1

By  Henry Winter, Football Correspondent, the Hawthorns

The little horse had a bit of a mare here. Jose Mourinho may not consider his team true thoroughbreds in the title race, but they could have gone four points clear at the top of the Premier League until some nervous defending cost them dear.
West Brom exploited a collection of Chelsea mistakes to equalise with three minutes remaining, Victor Anichebe cancelling out Branislav Ivanovic’s first-half goal.
Chelsea dropped points because they dropped too deep, partly because they lacked the defensive authority figure of John Terry to push them up, partly because the hobbling Gary Cahill should have gone off, partly because David Luiz switched off, partly because their attackers stopped pressing West Brom with the same alacrity as in the first half but also because of Pepe Mel’s tactics.
West Brom’s head coach, who has overseen draws against Everton, Liverpool and now Chelsea, responded shrewdly to going behind on the cusp of half-time.
His first change was straightforward, the limping Claudio Yacob replaced by Youssouf Mulumbu, who immediately brought some control to West Brom’s midfield. Mel then sent on Anichebe for Morgan Amalfitano and Matej Vydra for Thievy Bifouma, going for all-out attack.
The crowd responded, willing West Brom to press for the equaliser. Then came the Cahill knee injury, triggering a costly train of events. Cahill briefly went off but, typically, insisted in coming back on, although clearly not fit. Nemanja Matic, trying to help out, had dropped almost amongst the back four and made a poor clearance, skewing the ball to Liam Ridgewell, who quickly transferred play to Saido Berahino on the left.
Ivanovic, Chelsea’s right-back, who should have been tight to Berahino, had shifted inside to cover for Cahill. Berahino, having a yard of space, crossed and Anichebe, reacting quicker than Luiz, flicked a header in off the post. It was just the type of situation that Terry would have guarded against.
Mourinho argued that it was a sign that Chelsea are not ready for the title. Chelsea will lose their place at the top of the Premier League should Manchester City defeat Sunderland or Arsenal beat Manchester United on Wednesday night. There will inevitably be further twists and turns in the race. Liverpool, who travel to Fulham, cannot be discounted. This is a four-horse race now.
West Brom’s point took them out of the bottom three, and the second-half performance will give them hope. Berahino, pacy and versatile, showed why he should be starting regularly. Ben Foster made a couple of very good saves. Anichebe’s goal should increase his confidence. Mulumbu’s 27 minutes were a reminder why he should be in the starting XI.
Eventful in parts, this was not a classic game. Before Ivanovic swooped just before half-time, scoring his second goal in three games and the 400th Chelsea have scored under Mourinho, there had been little football of sufficient quality to warm the crowd. West Brom counter-attacked occasionally while Chelsea enjoyed plenty of possession but like the falling snow, nobody really settled.
The sides have fallen out this season, ensuring some tensions on the pitch. West Brom believed that Mourinho accused them of being a “Mickey Mouse” club during the fractious encounter at the Bridge, a claim Chelsea contest.
Ramires’s simulation when challenged by Steven Reid last November was neither forgotten nor forgiven by the West Brom fans who greeted some of his early touches with “he’s going to dive in a minute”.
The temperature was certainly taking a tumble, and even Snow White would have been shivering in the Black Country. As the half closed, Chelsea stepped up the pace. Eden Hazard had a free-kick blocked. Willian shot over.
Then West Brom’s marking let them down badly. Willian swept a corner across from the right, Luiz flicked on and there was the unmarked Ivanovic striking the ball home from six yards. West Brom fans complained that the goal came in the third minute of injury time after only two minutes had been indicated by the fourth official, David Coote, although this is always “a minimum”.
Chelsea seemed in control as the second half began. Oscar beat Ridgewell easily for pace. Willian moved away from Yacob and sent in a powerful shot pushed away by Foster. Having replaced Samuel Eto’o, Fernando Torres was immediately involved in a move with Hazard and Oscar that culminated in Willian’s shot thudding into Foster’s gloves.
Mel’s changes began to shift the game West Brom’s way. Thievy fired wide. James Morrison went close. Ivanovic, strangely, then boiled over, screaming at the assistant referee, and being cautioned by Anthony Taylor. Petr Cech, Chelsea’s captain, had to intervene to calm Ivanovic down.
Mourinho looked to close up the game, taking off Oscar for John Obi Mikel with 11 minutes remaining. West Brom increased their tempo, placing more and more pressure on Chelsea’s defenders. Luiz almost conceded a penalty when pulling Anichebe’s shirt. West Brom frustration built as they felt Chelsea were engaging in time-wasting.
They booed at Cahill when the centre-half slumped to the floor but he was clearly in pain. It was a surprise to see Cahill coming back on.
Chelsea’s defence seemed disorganised, leading to Berahino’s cross and Anichebe’s finish. Anichebe disappeared down an exit in his celebrations, earning a caution.
Mourinho now had to make an attacking change. He changed his plans for a replacement, sending on Mohamed Salah instead of Frank Lampard for Ramires, who was roundly booed as he went off.
Coote then signalled six minutes of added time, and Chelsea earned a fortuitous corner just before the end when Foster had actually kept the ball in. Forster then did brilliantly to clutch the ball, falling painfully to the ground but retaining possession.
When Anthony Taylor blew the whistle for full time, Mourinho hugged Mel twice. West Brom deserved a point and recognition for their prodigious effort in the second half.

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Mail:

West Brom 1-1 Chelsea: Anichebe slams brakes on Blues as Mourinho misses Terry

By Martin Samuel

Man of the match for Chelsea? Quite possibly John Terry.
How there can be any debate over his new contract after this is beyond belief.
The ball, from Saido Berahino, was floated in with four minutes remaining. It was a fine cross from a fine player, but a good centre-half would have had it covered, or at least done enough to disconcert West Bromwich Albion substitute Victor Anichebe in the air.
Sadly for Jose Mourinho, his best man was indisposed, only the second league game he has missed this season.
And so, what should have been an ominous four-point gap at the top became two and vulnerable with Arsenal and Manchester City at home on Wednesday night. Chelsea could be third by Thursday morning.
There was other mitigation. Gary Cahill has just taken a knock and was hobbling, so Branislav Ivanovic was slow to get out to Berahino because he was worried about deserting his centre-half.
Yet the fact is, if David Luiz had got in a position to clear the ball, or tight enough to disturb Anichebe as he rose to head it, Chelsea would have won. And that is just the sort of resistance Terry brings to a team.
It is speculation, obviously, but one imagines with Terry in the ranks, Mourinho's little horse would have been home and hosed here.
Until the final 15 minutes this had shaped up as what might be termed a Mourinho template title-winning performance. One of those displays when Chelsea look utterly assured from the get-go, seemingly in cruise control, untroubled, unhurried, a 1-0 win waiting to happen. Yet one is a slender margin. And it needs a steady back line to defend it.
Chelsea have had just that this season because Terry has been in some of the best form of his life. He makes Cahill better, he allows Luiz to be used as a central midfield player. He directs, he commands; before the win at Manchester City, Terry could even be seen orchestrating matters in the warm-up.
Without a doubt a missed opportunity for Chelsea, they should have won comfortably but credit to West Brom for getting back into it. Emotions were spilling over at the end, with substitute Fernando Torres squaring up to Ben Foster (above), and you start to wonder who is going to win this Premier League title.
It was almost like a boxing match, West Brom were on the ropes and covering up but Chelsea were out on their feet at the end.
Tactically, Pepe Mel has done a number on Jose Mourinho. And when they look back, this may cost Chelsea at the end of the season. Manchester City and Arsenal will be licking their lips ahead of Wednesday night.
Samuel Eto’o was lonely up top for Chelsea and they didn’t commit enough men to win. They were hanging on at the end.
Whatever the size or quality of the mount, in Terry, Chelsea have a top jockey. He gets them home. Luiz dropped the reins and one came up on the rails.
At 70 minutes, West Bromwich were done. They are fighting for their future in the Barclays Premier League but had offered little but a tame, timid surrender. Albion did not threaten, did not challenge and Chelsea were comfortable.
Perhaps sensing a lack of ambition, West Brom began to take the initiative. It was at this point, surely, that Terry would have intervened, taken charge, reorganised. Nobody took that responsibility.
Ivanovic screaming at a linesman over a disputed decision is not responsibility. Petr Cech being called in to calm his team-mate down is merely a distraction. And all the while, Albion grew more hopeful.
James Morrison and new signing Thievy Bifouma shot over, then Chris Brunt  lashed one across the face of goal. There were headers and skirmishes and those previously possessing such certainty in Chelsea's ability to close out a game began exchanging worried glances.
When Cahill went down injured and got up limping it was the fissure that brought the wall down. Lack of ambition played a part, too.
Chelsea had another tilt at West Brom in the first 15 minutes of the second half but after that appeared to lose interest.
Oscar had a shot from 25 yards that curled just wide, and Ben Foster made two excellent saves, but this was Chelsea in energy-saving mode.
In the 50th minute Willian - the best player on the field, and always a threat - found Samuel Eto'o, whose low shot forced a good stop from Foster. Then, in the 58th minute, an effort from range by Willian took a slight deflection and produced the save of the night.
After which, as West Bromwich got busy at last, Mourinho brought on John Mikel Obi to shore up the win. He didn't. Terry would have. That's the difference.
It wasn't much of a match, in the first-half at least. The biggest reaction came when Ramires appeared to turn his right knee under pressure from Thievy, giving the home fans the opportunity to vent some pretty base theories about his personal ethics.
It was Ramires's fall that gave Chelsea a late penalty to equalise when the teams met earlier in the season at Stamford Bridge. Many Albion supporters regard that as the incident that changed their season, precipitating a poor run, the hasty dismissal of Steve Clarke, the drawn-out appointment of Pepe Mel and the slide towards the relegation places.
It is fair to say if Ramires is ever low on petrol passing through the West Bromwich area, he may be advised to chance running on fumes until he gets to Wolverhampton. This time, though, the locals appear to have done the Brazilian a disservice. Replays showed it could have been a nasty injury, and he did well to run it off - even though his every touch thereafter bought fresh waves of booing.
Well, they haven't had much to cheer about, of late. And they didn't here, initially. Albion's only chance of the first half came almost by accident. A cross from Berahino found Thievy in a good scoring position but he was let down by his touch, the ball actually travelling backwards. Thievy then made the best of it, finding Brunt, who drove a low shot wide. It was meagre stuff.
There was a gulf in class here for much of the game and, while not immediately apparent from the scoreline, it was from the action.
Chelsea had control from early and their goal seemed a matter of time; of injury time, in fact. It was in the additional period signalled by fourth official David Coote that Chelsea scored, a set-piece goal aided by some woeful defending from the home team.
Willian took a corner from the right and put it short, as he so often does, where it was flicked on by Luiz. A header? No, this was close to a backheel flick, a low-level assist that was not cut out, or picked up, as if flew across the goal to Ivanovic at the far post.
A lot has been made of Seamus Coleman's goalscoring for Everton this season, but few full-backs have made so many vital appearances on the scoresheet as  Chelsea's right-back in recent seasons.
And there it should have remained. Mourinho said his team were too comfortable, but that is only half the story. They didn't commit in the periods when West Bromwich were there for the taking. Terry usually covers for lapses like that with clean sheets.
They'll miss him when he's gone. A new contract? Have they considered cloning?

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Mirror:

West Brom 1-1 Chelsea: Victor Anichebe equalises at the death for plucky Albion

By Martin Lipton

And it was no less than the hosts deserved as the Nigeria forward tucked home a late goal to cancel out Branislav Ivanovic's opener
It's a different game when you're the hunted, not the hunter.
Suddenly, instead of chasing the summit, seeking to remind your rivals you are not going away, you have something tangible to defend, something to lose.
And as Jose Mourinho's grim face at the final whistle told its own story, Chelsea lost something precious on Tuesday night. Not only the guarantee of being top at close of business this evening. But, perhaps more crucially, the momentum and expectation they were beginning to build.
Unlike his two predecessors, failing to pick up three points at the Hawthorns will not prove fatal for the Portuguese. Yet the graveyard of Chelsea managers could haunt Mourinho and his players in May, when all the little moments suddenly add up to the biggest sum of all.
Had Chelsea held on for the final moments of a match they had dominated until Pepe Mel's side rubbed their eyes in disbelief that they were still in it and started to have a go, they would now be standing four points clear of the pack.
The heat, undoubtedly, would have been on Arsenal, Manchester City and Liverpool to respond. Not mind-games, but real pressure.
Arguably, too, had John Terry been playing, marshalling, ensuring they did not fall asleep, Mourinho's men would have closed it out. But Terry was back in Oxshott, after a day in the gym at Cobham.
Instead, when Gary Cahill limped back on after going down inside his own box, Branislav Ivanovic - who had scored with virtually the last kick of a dire first half - was caught in two minds, not close enough to prevent Saido Berahino delivering from the left.
The error proved costly, Berahino putting the ball in the right place, Victor Anichebe too quick and determined for David Luiz - off-key all night - and Petr Cech rooted to the spot as the ball dribbled in.
In that blink of an eye, that moment of sloppiness, two points were lost by the Blues, a massive one gained by Pepe Mel's Baggies. Quite how they got away with it was hard to fathom, apart from that old adage about the need to take your chances.
Not that Chelsea had too many of them in the opening period, although with Willian the stand-out player on the park by a distance, they were clearly better.
As it was, with West Brom perhaps already congratulating themselves for a half-job well-done deep into stoppage time, Ivanovic struck, as he had at City last week. Willian's corner should have been cut out before it reached Luiz, who flicked across goal for the Serb, who left two would-be markers in his wake, to hammer home from six yards.
That should have been the launch-pad and had Chelsea been anywhere near as clinical as potential title winners should be, it would have been over. Then again, the lack of a genuine, top-drawer, world-class striker has looked their Achilles heel all season, something Mourinho failed to address last month.
Samuel Eto'o has scored eight goals this term but despite that hat-trick against Manchester United only has six in the Premier League, the Cameroonian thwarted by Ben Foster when Willian played him in at the start of the second period.
Chelsea kept coming but Foster kept on repelling them, exceeding the Eto'o save when he turned aside a Willian effort which pinged wildly off Craig Dawson.
And when Eden Hazard, leggy all night, spurned the chance to pick out any of the four black shirts waiting for the right pass after scampering into a huge space down the Chelsea left, Albion began to believe.
Slowly at first, Thievy Bifouma slashing across the face of goal as the Chelsea defence suddenly displayed vulnerability. But after Gareth McAuley headed over, Cahill's injury, Ivanovic's hesitation and Luiz' uncertainty were punished as Anichebe did to Chelsea what he had to Liverpool 10 days ago.
At the death, as Chelsea piled forward, they might even have lost it. It still felt like a defeat. When you're top, they do. They might be reflecting on it from third this evening.

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

Express:

West Brom 1 - Chelsea 1: Baggies leave it late to shock the Blues

WEST BROM showed they were no joke as they took a point in their battle for Premier League survival against high-flying Chelsea.

By: John Wragg

Despite their domination Chelsea could not stop the Baggies from scoring a late equaliser Despite their domination Chelsea could not stop the Baggies from scoring a late equaliser [GETTY]
The Baggies are fighting at the opposite end of the table to the title-chasing Blues but answered the jibes thrown at them by Jose Mourinho.
This was not Mickey Mouse, it was more Desperate Dan as West Brom stood toe-to-toe with Chelsea and fought back from a goal down to earn a draw with a late strike from substitute Victor Anichebe.
The equaliser, after Branislav Ivanovic’s first-half strike, lifted West Brom out of the bottom three.
Mourinho did not have to look far to find reason to be aggrieved, though, as his defender Gary Cahill had picked up an injury just before the goal was scored.
Mourinho had labelled West Brom a “Mickey Mouse” club after Albion were denied victory by a controversial late penalty at Stamford Bridge three months ago when.
The Baggies’ objective had to be to prove Mourinho wrong, even though a disastrous run of one win in 15 league games, dumping them into the relegation quagmire, would seem to suggest he was correct.
Chelsea on the other hand had stormed to the top of the table with 26 points from the past 30 on offer, a 10-game unbeaten run in direct contrast to Mourinho’s claim they cannot win the league.
West Brom manager Pepe Mel had the memory of beating Mourinho’s Real Madrid when he was in charge at Real Betis two years ago to fall back on, and his side were content to smother Chelsea as best they could, relying on the speed of Thievy Bifouma, making his full debut, and Saido Berahino on the counter-attack.
Willian threatened for the visitors with a 25-yard drive that sailed wide and, when Albion’s contain-and-hit policy was employed to effect, Bifouma was presented with a chance but failed to control the ball and get a shot on target.
Mourinho’s argument about not being able to win the league is born from the absence from his side of strikers to score the goals. It was a point validated somewhat by the way Chelsea played one-twos in front of West Brom’s defence with little penetration in the first half. West Brom’s Craig Dawson needed to slide in to quell some danger, but Chelsea were generally tepid.
Willian tried again with a long-range volley four minutes before half-time that went over the crossbar and frustration looked likely to be Chelsea’s companion in the dressing room.
But just seconds before the break, Albion’s concentration was lost and they were suddenly a goal down. Willian took a corner, David Luiz got a little touch, and Ivanovic was allowed to storm in and get his shot away for his third goal of the season.
Albion’s problem was now to get back into the game, simply defending deep was not enough. It meant the Baggies had to open up a little – and that gave Chelsea more scope, as Willian showed in the 50th minute with a cute pass to Samuel Eto’o.
Eto’o’s drive was powerful but Albion keeper Ben Foster, not at all busy in the first half, made a good save at his near post.
Willian also brought a good save out of Foster eight minutes later, but the Baggies would not surrender.
They resolutely kept to their game plan and Chelsea were still severely restricted in what they were able to create, giving Albion the continual hope that they might, deservedly, snatch something back.
Bifouma had a superb chance to make a name for himself in the 75th minute with a shot across Chelsea’s goal and Chris Brunt did the same a couple of minutes later, but was not was anywhere near as close. It all got a bit much for Chelsea, who were under a lot of pressure, with Ivanovic having a row with a linesman and being booked and his keeper, Petr Cech, coming out to appease him.
Further problems arose when Cahill limped to the sidelines with what looked to be a calf injury but then returned to the fray as Chelsea attempted to see the game out. But they finally cracked in the 87th minute with Anichebe getting in front of Luiz to head in Saido Berahino’s cross.
And it could have been even worse with Brunt going close with a shot from distance as West Brom set their sights in on an unlikely win.

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

Star:

West Brom 1 - Chelsea 1: Victor Anichebe puts a dent in Chelsea's title bid

CHELSEA'S grip on top spot slackened after they were hit by a late Victor Anichebe equaliser.

By Dave Armitage
Yes, they extended their lead by a further point but with their rivals playing tonight their stay at the summit is likely to be brief.
And it could have been a whole lot worse for Jose Mourinho’s men who were lucky to survive a late barrage from the home side in a niggly encounter.
Up to substitute Anichebe’s 86th minute strike, Chelsea were hanging on to a Branislav Ivanovic goal right on the stroke of half-time.
But their failure to get the all-important second ended up costing them as The Baggies stormed back with a ding-dong finish.
And Anichebe was the hero, literally finally escaping the clutches of David Luiz to rise high and head home a cross from Saido Berahino.
Luiz had been getting to grips with the big striker from the minute he came on and was booked for shirt-pulling.
It all got fractious at the end, just as it had in the clash at Stamford Bridge earlier in the season.
Then players had to be separated in the tunnel after Chelsea’s controversial stoppage time penalty equaliser.
This wasn’t quite as bad but several players were going eye-ball to-eyeball as they left the pitch quarrelling.
Ben Foster and Fernando Torres were going at it and Ivanovic and his own skipper Petr Cech were also at it hammer and tongs.
Chelsea’s frustration was understandable because Albion could easily have won it with a nail-biting assault on the Chelsea goal for the last 20 minutes.
After the Battle of the Bridge encounter Mourinho labelled West Brom a ‘Micky Mouse club.’
But that came back to haunt him as the struggling Baggies really made him sweat.
Ivanovic looked to have fired a killer blow for the title pace-setters with a goal right on the stroke of half-time.
The defender showed the positional sense of a top marksman when he surged in at the far post to fire Mourinho’s men in front.
This was always going to be a potentially tricky clash for Chelsea given the fiery encounter between the two sides in London.
Though it was Chelsea who dictated the early pace of the game, they were given occasional reminders that they couldn’t afford to leave themselves too exposed at the back.
Willian was the main source of threat for Chelsea and he went much close with a scorching 27th minute effort which only just cleared the angle of bar and post.
Four minutes before the break it was Willian again who threatened to break the deadlock with an angled drive flew narrowly over.
But right on the stroke of half-time Chelsea eventually breached the dam when Ivanovic steamed in at the far post to blast them into the lead.
The defender cashed in when David Luiz casually flicked Willian’s corner across the face of the six-yard box.
And there was Ivanovic, perfectly placed to smash the ball in and suddenly put a completely different complexion on the game.
Chelsea wouldn’t have needed reminding that they had lost on their previous two visits to The Hawthorns and anything less than a win this time around was the last thing they needed.
This game had come on the back of a fantastic weekend which had seen them go to the top of the table for the first time this season, courtesy of their 3-0 win over Newcastle and a couple of other helpful results.
Foster made a number of good stops to keep Albion in the hunt - one a great diving save to beat away a fiercely struck drive from Samuel Eto’o.
But all the action was at the other end in a grandstand finish and Anichebe, continually tugged back by Luiz, struck with four minutes left.
He rose high to meet Berahino’s cross and diverted it into the corner of the net to deliver a hammer blow to Chelsea’s hopes of continuing to set the pace at the top


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

Newcastle 3-0

 

 

Independent:

Chelsea 3 Newcastle 0 Jose Mourinho falls in love as Eden Hazard lights up the Bridge

The Chelsea manager waxes lyrical about the Belgian, after his hat-trick sinks Newcastle

Michael Calvin  
 

It’s not Valentine’s Day yet, and the love affair between Jose Mourinho and Eden Hazard is approaching unbridled, lilac-scented Mills & Boon infatuation. Who needs Belgian chocolates when you have a Belgian footballer with pretensions to be the best on the planet?
 
Chelsea moved to the top of the Premier League courtesy of Hazard’s first hat-trick for the club. Mourinho, who had set the tone by suggesting Hazard was the natural successor to Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi, was in no mood to temper his praise.

“Eden has had a big evolution” he said. “He is playing with consistency and ambition. His level today was not different from other performances this season, other than the fact he scored. You can’t hide at the top of the League, but individually he is in a very good moment.”

Hazard has been reprogrammed, recalibrated. He acknowledges he has been transformed into a more tactically aware, team-focused player by a manager who is “very close” to his players. A lot closer than the Newcastle defence got to him at Stamford Bridge, when he became only the fourth player to score three times in a Premier League match this season.

Hazard had effectively decided the game by half-time, with two goals of similar quality but distinctive style. He completed only his second senior hat trick – the first was for Lille – 18 minutes after the interval by calmly converting a penalty given at the behest of linesman Darren Cann, who noticed Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa rugby tackling Samuel Eto’o in an off the ball incident.

Hazard has now scored 12 Premier League goals, 14 in total, this season. Chelsea have overhauled Arsenal with little apparent effort, and will approach Saturday’s FA Cup tie at Manchester City with impressive resolve and jaunty confidence.

You get what you pay for, and the value of investments is relative. If anyone can appear a bargain at £32 million, Hazard can. Mourinho was irritated by Chelsea’s initial diffidence, but visibly relaxed once when the Belgian began and finished the move which led to them taking a 27th-minute lead.

He advanced with trademark pace and control after a sharp turn, feeding Branislav Ivanovic on the right with a diagonal pass before sweeping in the full back’s squared return ball. Chelsea’s second goal, six minutes later, was simply sumptuous.

It started from a corner, conceded when Moussa Sissoko wasted Newcastle’s best chance of the match with a heavy touch which allowed Petr Cech to parry his shot. It flowed the length of the pitch through David Luiz, Willian and Hazard before the Belgian continued his run on to a back-heeled flick by Eto’o.

The sidefooted finish was a formality. “Real class” acknowledged Newcastle manager Alan Pardew. “He is at the top of his game. This is a great platform for him, but his work rate, in fact everything about him, was excellent.”

As for Mourinho, the fire is back in the old rascal’s eyes, even if his analogies require a little work. All that nonsense about horses, milk and the comparative sizes of nags in the Premier League is just Mourinho clearing his throat. He promised, with a smile, “the horse is dead”.

It was an indication of Newcastle’s limited threat that he indulged himself beforehand, by borrowing one of Fergie’s most under-rated weapons – theatrical sympathy. His friendship with Pardew ensured he was respectful, rather than scornful after another extension of the pantomime season at St James’ Park.

The travelling fans massed in the right hand corner of the Shed, singing songs of unrequited love and loyalty. At the risk of spoiling a fine romance with cold, hard statistics, a summary of the respective clubs’ transfer dealings over the last five years explained the venom directed at Newcastle owner Mike Ashley.

The sale of Yohan Cabaye means Newcastle are £45m in profit, the most in the Premier League. Only Manchester City have amassed a bigger deficit than Chelsea, who have suffered a net loss of £282m.

Mourinho was able to introduce Egypt international Mohammed Salah, at £15m the latest player to embody the largesse of Roman Abramovich, for the last 12 minutes. He has City where he wants them, on the back foot.

He scents weaknesses, not just in the way he imposed himself tactically in last Monday’s coaching duel at the Etihad, but personally. If Manuel Pellegrini really is serious about taking the Chelsea manager on in psychological warfare, he is using a peashooter against a tank.

Mourinho, the master of the subliminal statement and the coded message, is in his element. Despite dismissing Chelsea’s status as new title favourites, he knows the League is winnable. So do his players. Love is in the air, down at the Bridge.

Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Cech; Ivanovic, Luiz, Cahill, Azpilicueta; Matic, Lampard; Ramires, Willian (Salah, 78), Oscar, Hazard (Schurrle, 85); Eto’o (Ba, 71).

Newcastle (4-4-1-1): Krul; Debuchy (Yanga-Mbiwa, 40), Williamson, S Taylor, Santon; Dummett, Anita (Marveaux, 85), Sissoko, Ben Arfa (Gosling, 64); Sammy Ameobi; De Jong.

Referee Howard Webb.

Man of the match Hazard (Chelsea).

Match rating 7/10.

 

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

Times:

Eden Hazard hat-trick takes Chelsea top of the Premier League

Alyson Rudd 

Chelsea 3 Newcastle 0

Eden Hazard scored a long overdue hat-trick for Chelsea to underline the seriousness of their title challenge as they move to the top of the Barclays Premier League table. The more José Mourinho dismisses their title ambitions, the more likely it seems that his club will be the one to top the league at the end of the season.

And still Chelsea keep it contained, keep it minimal. They never really tore into Newcastle, they rarely go full pelt at anyone, and so the overwhelming sense was that they have plenty in reserve for the FA Cup and Champions League while causing the sweat to fall from the brows of those who felt absolutely certain Manchester City or Arsenal were in pole positon in the league.

The start was cautious but confident. Tim Krul saved with his feet from Hazard’s low drive in the clearest of the home side’s early chances but the Newcastle goalkeeper was increasingly exposed and Hazard was increasingly dangerous. Then in the 28th minute the Belgium midfielder produced a stinging strike that hit the bottom left-hand corner of Krul’s net.

Newcastle tried to stay lively. Petr Cech saved at the feet of Moussa Sissoko — and it proved a timely intervention as his defence lost concentration from the man who received an award before kick-off in honour of breaking Peter Bonetti’s club record for clean sheets.

You snarl at Chelsea at your peril, however. The home side retorted with crisp, cruel simplicity and a second strike from Hazard. A back-heel from Samuel Eto’o was at the heart of a goal that began with quick thinking from David Luiz in his own penalty area.

A Frank Lampard free kick brought the best out of Krul and from the resultant corner - a poor one - Newcastle gave away a penalty when Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa hauled Eto’o to the ground. At last Hazard had his hat-trick, and having shown his nerveless side with a penalty, he was allowed to receive the plaudits from the supporters when taken off seven minutes from the end.

The defeat felt inevitable for the visiting team, who are struggling to absorb the loss of Yohan Cabaye and found their resources stretched by injuries to Cheik Tioté, Papiss Demba Cissé and Yoan Gouffran as well as the suspension of Loïc Rémy. As soon as Davide Santon, the side’s most elegant defender, hobbled off in the first half, Alan Pardew was reduced to damage limitation.

A few weeks ago, the Newcastle manager had a surfeit of talented French players at his disposal but he is now suffering the ill effects of a tame policy in the transfer window. It was a strategy that cost Joe Kinnear his job as the club’s director of football.

We almost witnessed the comedy goal of the season when a hoofed ball upfield by Luiz caught a stumbling Krul off guard but Newcastle were saved that particular embarrassment. This season is rapidly turning into a campaign of small mercies for the North East club and into one of enormous promise for Chelsea — no matter what their manager might tell us.

 

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

Telegraph:

 

Chelsea 3 Newcastle United 0

By Jim White, Stamford Bridge

When it comes to little horses, there aren’t many better in the Premier League than Eden Hazard. As Arsenal were flattened on Merseyside, and Manchester City laboured in East Anglia, Jose Mourinho’s Belgian magician was sealing the points for Chelsea which put them top of the table. His three goals destroyed a lame Newcastle United.

It may have been the first game John Terry has missed in the league this season (he was suffering from a muscle strain) but Chelsea were hardly inconvenienced. Frankly they could have had Laurel and Hardy playing in the centre of their defence when they had Eden Hazard in front of them. The Belgian, these days sporting a proto-Amish beard, was in magnificent form, continuing his challenge to Luis Suarez to be considered the player of the season.

His first goal came in the 26th minute. Frank Lampard – enjoying a characteristically strolled return to Chelsea’s midfield - pushed the ball forward to him as he lurked in front of the Newcastle area. In a blur of limbs, Hazard flicked it past Williamson then in one fluid movement played it out to Branislav Ivanovic. When the full back pulled the ball back from the edge of the area, Hazard had timed his run perfectly to whip the ball beyond Tim Krul.

There was more to come. The Newcastle fans barely had time to chant their regionalist disquiet with the club owner Mike Ashley (something about him being cockney and overweight, in paraphrase) before Hazard was again on the scoresheet. It was a belter of a goal, one which summed up Chelsea’s counter attacking agility. From a Newcastle corner, David Luiz broke quickly away from defence, played the ball forward to Willian, who, within a couple of pacey strides, laid it into Hazard. The Belgian approached area, passed to Eto’o who returned the ball immediately via a delicious back heeled pass. Hazard duly slotted home.

After half time, the pattern continued. Chelsea almost had a third when a hit and hope clearance from David Luiz bounced over Tim Krul as he slipped and almost landed at Oscar’s feet in front of goal. It was a comedy moment, though Krul wasn’t laughing. He twisted his ankle as he slipped in the attempt to intercept and required extensive patching up.

Not that Chelsea took pity. Within a couple of minutes of his injury, the substitute Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa had needlessly hauled down Eto’o in thepush-and-shove during a Chelsea corner. It may have been well away from the action, but Howard Webb’s lynx-eyed response was rightly to award a penalty. Lampard relinquished his normal responsibilities to allow Hazard majestically to record his hat trick.

He was granted a suitable ovation in the 85th minute when he was substituted by Andre Schurrle. There was, you assume, a large glass of milk supplied by Mourinho awaiting in the dressing room by way of celebration.

 

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

 

Observer:

Chelsea top table after Eden Hazard hat-trick defeats Newcastle

Dominic Fifield at Stamford Bridge

Chelsea's "little horses" have galloped clear of the pack. If that win at Manchester City on Monday had served notice that this team are contenders, despite José Mourinho's protestations to the contrary, then the follow-up was impressive in its slick and efficient delivery. Newcastle may be a side who feel horribly stretched at present but they were dismissed almost at will, their players diminished in the mere presence of Eden Hazard.

The Belgian is irresistible, a world-class talent whose potential to develop further is frightening. Take his second goal, reward plucked at breakneck pace to knock the stuffing from the visitors' challenge, with team-mates having tapped into Hazard's wavelength. Newcastle had actually been mustering at a corner, aspiring to force parity through Moussa Sissoko, when a save by Petr Cech and a heavy touch from Vurnon Anita resulted in the ball squirting out of the area for David Luiz to hook down the left flank, Willian to gather and, eventually, Hazard to collect.

He cut inside, slipped a pass to Samuel Eto'o, who backheeled a return behind a panicked Paul Dummett, and there was Hazard to dart in behind the defender and finish first time with his right foot. Even Alan Pardew, helpless as he surveyed the wreckage, could only admire the speed at which his team had been cut to shreds.

"Class," was the Newcastle manager's assessment. "His performance here was like that against Hull, at City, at Southampton, at home to United and Liverpool," said Mourinho. "He's basically playing the same way. The only difference was the hat-trick." It was almost as if his plunder was an aside, glitzy decoration for all the skill and effort. "He's playing really well: big evolution; consistency; ambition. Fantastic."

When one witnesses such brilliance, those oft-stated aspirations to emulate Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi do not seem quite so outlandish. "These players are the best on the planet," Hazard had told the BBC earlier in the day. "They score one, two, three goals every game. It's something you've got to aim for."

He did that here, registering the second hat-trick of his career and his first in English football, to swell his tally for the season to 14. Mourinho, having eked industry from such a creative force, has since urged him to be more ruthless. The 23-year-old is taking the advice on board.

He now has six goals in his past eight Premier League appearances, his first here having been just as sumptuous: an exchange with the marauding Branislav Ivanovic down the right, with the finish swept across Tim Krul and into the far corner from just inside the area.

He was untouchable, tormenting first Mathieu Debuchy and, once the Frenchman had retired with a calf injury, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa, although he did not scorch just Newcastle's beleaguered right-backs. Centre-halves were pulled out of position and neither Davide Santon nor Anita could cope with his movement. "He has a great platform on which to perform," said Pardew, "with their back four so tough behind him."

The solidity here came in the absence of John Terry, who missed his first Premier League minutes of the season with a muscle twinge. The clean sheet means this team have conceded two goals in their past 11 games, even if Newcastle had been offered glimpses of goal.

Luuk de Jong, on his full debut, almost registered a first club goal since April after peeling away from David Luiz, only for Cech to flop down on the effort in the goalmouth. The goalkeeper would later react smartly to thwart Sissoko, once he had evaded Ivanovic, while both Sammy Ameobi and Sylvain Marveaux missed presentable opportunities late on. Pardew hopes to restore Papiss Cissé to the side against Tottenham Hotspur in midweek, though the Senegalese must rediscover the bite that has eluded him in recent times.

Chelsea always felt comfortable, not least because Newcastle retained their propensity to self-destruct. Yanga-Mbiwa summed that up. Frank Lampard had just seen a free-kick tipped over when the veteran's corner was cleared, only for Howard Webb to be alerted to the defender's wrestling of Eto'o to the floor at the far post. Hazard ambled up for the spot-kick and slid it easily home and Chelsea, with Manchester City scoreless in Norwich, were top. This team had only previously spent 10 days at the summit this season – compared with Arsenal's 130 and City's 24 – and, with West Bromwich Albion awaiting on Tuesday, Mourinho was not quite ready to make his side contenders just yet. "We are playing well, with players in a good moment individually and getting results," he said.

"Now we are top of the league and that is something we cannot hide – but no change." Are his team still "little horses" in a thoroughbred race? "It's time to kill the horses," came the response. The metaphor has run its course. Chelsea have plenty more still to give.

 

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

 

Mail:

Chelsea 3-0 Newcastle: Hazard hat-trick sends delighted Blues top of the league

By Joe Bernstein

It was the electric Eden Hazard show at Stamford Bridge as his brilliant hat-trick sent Jose Mourinho and Chelsea top of the league.

Following his man-of-the-match performance at Manchester City on Monday night, the 23-year-old Belgian was unstoppable once again.

Hazard has acknowledged he needs to score a bucketload of goals to be compared properly to Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo.

Well, this was a good start as he took his season’s tally to 14 and underlined why Chelsea now value him at three times the £32million they paid for him.

Hazard has the X-factor that lifts fans from their seats every time he gets the ball.

His first two goals were pure class; the first an instant finish from Branislav Ivanovic’s pass, the second the culmination of some wonderful Chelsea team play.

Even his hat-trick goal, delivered from the penalty spot, had a unique swagger and style to it, leaving Newcastle goalkeeper Tim Krul frozen on his line. Hazard slid to his knees in celebration after completing his first treble since his last game for Lille in 2012.

Mourinho had insisted Chelsea are still a ‘little horse’ in terms of winning the title in his comeback season but this morning they are in the lead, ahead of rival trainers Arsene Wenger and Manuel Pellegrini.

Irritated by the first equine-based question after the game, Mourinho drew laugher as he said: ‘It’s time to kill the horse!’

But he then continued to try and dampen title expectations. ‘We are top of the league, it’s something we can’t hide. But I say the same, and I feel the same,’ he opined.

Beaten manager Alan Pardew was a little more positive about their prospects. ‘I have played against Chelsea under Mourinho many times. This team is as good as he’s had and they’ve got a good chance,’ he said.

Newcastle, missing goalscorers Loic Remy and Yoan Gouffran from the team that beat Chelsea 2-0 in November, were not at the races and Chelsea were able to give their skipper John Terry the day off without any side-effects.

The visitors contained Chelsea for 27 minutes until Hazard took the game by the scruff of the neck.

His turn and surge near the halfway line allowed Ivanovic to gallop forward from right back. Hazard gave him the ball and hardly broke stride as he steered the return pass low past Krul.

It was his 12th goal of an outstanding season and first at Stamford Bridge in 2014 but he didn’t need long to improve both statistics.

Newcastle had just squandered their best chance of the first half — stand-in skipper Moussa Sissoko taking a heavy touch when in on goal — when Chelsea broke with devastating effect.

Brazilians David Luiz and Willian started the move with incisive passes that found Hazard breaking free down the left. Hazard played a short pass to Samuel Eto’o, who cleverly back-flicked a return and the Belgian curled a low finish into the corner.

‘There is a big evolution in his game, he is playing with consistency and ambition,’ said Mourinho.

‘But this performance was no different to the way he  played against Hull, City, home to United, Southampton. The only difference is the three goals.’

By half-time, Newcastle’s only ambition was damage limitation, particularly with defender Mathieu Debuchy limping off with a calf injury to add to their growing casualty list.

Krul embarrassed himself after the re-start, slipping as he came out to gather a long punt by Luiz and was relieved the ball drifted just past the post.

But it proved a brief stay of execution. Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa wrestled Eto’o to the floor at a corner — ‘I don’t why my player grabbed him,’ admitted a perplexed Pardew — and regular penalty-taker Frank Lampard graciously stood aside for Hazard.

Hazard’s eyes suggested he would put the ball to Krul’s right. Instead he slotted to the keeper’s left. Krul was so confused he still had not moved as the net rippled.

Hazard received a deserved ovation as Mourinho took him off near the end to rest him for future matches and West Brom will not be looking forward to seeing him on Tuesday.

Hazard started the day on television outlining his ambition to one day be mentioned in the same breathe as Messi and Ronaldo.

‘There are lots of tough, young players out there,’ he said. ‘Yes, I think I’m up there with the best but I hope people will eventually take away the word “young” because that would mean I’ve moved up another level.

‘I have to work extremely hard to get to their level. Those players are on another planet because they score two or three goals every game.

‘I hope to be like them one day.’

Chelsea: Cech 6, Ivanovic 7, Cahill  7 Luiz 7 Azpilicueta 7, Matic 7, Lampard 7, Willian 7 (Salah 78) Oscar 7, Hazard 9 (Schurrle 84), Eto'o 8 (Ba 71).

Subs not used: Cole, Ramires, Mikel, Schwarzer.

Goals: Hazard 27, 34, 63.

Newcastle: Krul 5, Debuchy 5 (Yanga-Mbiwa 40, 5) Williamson 5, Steven Taylor 5, Dummett 5, Anita 6 (Marveaux 84), Santon 5, Ben Arfa 5 (Gosling 64), Sissoko 5, Sammy Ameobi 5, De Jong 4.

Subs not used: Haidara, Elliot, Shola Ameobi, Armstrong.

Booked: Yanga-Mbiwa, Sammy Ameobi, Sissoko.

Man of the match: Eden Hazard

Ref: Howard Webb 6.

Att: 41,387.

 

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

Mirror:

Chelsea 3-0 Newcastle United: Eden Hazard hat-trick sends Blues to the top of the Premier League

By Steve Stammers

The Belgian netted a treble for Jose Mourinho's men who take advantage of Manchester City and Arsenal dropping points to top the league
 

So much for Jose ­Mourinho’s assertion that Chelsea’s status in the title race is that of the small horse.

His team went top of the Premier League at a canter with an emphatic win over depleted Newcastle at Stamford Bridge.

And in Eden Hazard, they have a genuine thoroughbred. The Belgian was a class apart and left the visiting defenders demoralised and bemused, then went home with the match-ball for his first hat-trick for the club.

Earlier in the day, Arsenal took a ­spectacular tumble at their own Becher’s Brook up in the Grand National territory of Merseyside.

But the Blues looked potential champions as they won almost as they liked – in racing parlance, with a double-handful.

True, they were up against opponents who appear to be in a state of constant flux.

The last thing manager Alan Pardew needs at the moment is sympathy but when Yohan Cabaye – his most influential player – is sold in the winter window and the squad is boosted by a striker in Luuk de Jong who looks less than half-fit, then you have to feel for him.

With Loic Remy banned and Fabricio Coloccini and Cheick Tiote injured,  the Magpies looked lightweight in key areas.

And Chelsea are currently the last team you want to face when so many first-choice players are absent. They have a ruthless streak that has been the ­hallmark of Mourinho teams from Milan to Madrid.

Newcastle’s effort and industry kept them in the game for 27 minutes.

Then Hazard made his telling impact. Oscar had fired just wide a minute earlier but there was no reprieve when Branislav Ivanovic crossed from the right and Hazard produced a devastating finish.

What Newcastle needed was luck – but if it wasn’t for bad luck, Pardew wouldn’t be having any at the moment.

And when he needed his powerhouse Moussa Sissoko to show composure, in the 33rd minute, the France star’s touch deserted him. He was through on goal but knocked the ball a fraction too far. It gave Petr Cech a crucial moment to sprint from his line and block.

From the corner, Chelsea cleared their lines and Willian gave Hazard possession. He swapped passes with Samuel Eto’o and guided the ball past Tim Krul.

“A goal of real class,” admitted Pardew. “But it could have been different if we had taken that chance just before.”

Mourinho agreed, saying: “Instead of 1-1 it became 2-0 and that is why I congratulated Petr Cech. It was a big save.”

Just when Pardew thought matters could not deteriorate further, they did.

His influential right-back Mathieu Debuchy hurt his calf and had to come off before half-time and was replaced by Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa. However the French defender was to play an unwitting part in ensuring Hazard secured his third goal.

Krul escaped embarrassment when he slipped going for a long ­clearance from David Luiz and was relieved to see the ball bounce wide. But after 63 minutes came Yanga-Mbiwa’s moment of madness.

A corner from the left held little threat but at the far post, Eto’o was left in a heap on the ground because of Yanga-Mbiwa’s illegal ­challenge.

West Ham supporters might ­question the judgement of referee Howard Webb after the Andy Carroll affair but Chelsea fans have no such reservations, as the official pointed to the spot and Hazard beat Krul with the spot-kick.

“I don’t know why Mapou fouled like he did,” said Pardew.

There are a number of issues at Newcastle these days that defy belief. Just one more to baffle long-suffering fans.

 

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

Express:

Eden Hazard hat-trick gives Chelsea win at a canter

THE little Hazard plundered a hat-trick and the little horse jumped to the top of the Premier League. It was a rich day indeed for Chelsea and their maestro manager Jose Mourinho.

By: Jim Holden

Whatever you think of his endlessly provocative comments, there can be no doubting that Mourinho fashions winning football teams and inspires excellence from gifted players.

A wonderful hat-trick scored by Eden Hazard yesterday was happy proof of that, all the goals scored with panache and precision.

It lifted Chelsea above both Arsenal and Manchester City in the Premier League table yesterday and gave the lie to Mourinho’s comment a few days ago that his side are the ‘little horse’ in the title race.

“It’s time to kill the horse,” joked Mourinho afterwards. He knows well enough that Chelsea are serious title contenders and now favourites with the bookmakers.

Nevertheless, he wants to lower expectations, saying: “Today we are top of the league and we can’t hide that – but I look to fifth place. I want to be far from fifth, because when we have a Champions League position under control only then will it be time to look at Arsenal and City and see where they are.

“At the moment we are playing well and getting results. But as for being favourites – well, I don’t bet.” What he has done is invest tremendous faith in the talent of Hazard and that is clearly paying off as the little winger lit up the afternoon with two outstanding goals in seven minutes midway through the first half.

There are those who believe the Belgian is a luxury player. Well, not on this evidence. Even if you don’t subscribe to manager Mourinho’s claim that Hazard is the third-best player in the world, he must be heading that way.

Hazard began the first goal with a clever trick to work some space in midfi eld and sent Branislav Ivanovic thundering down the right flank. The return pass was into the Newcastle area where he swept the ball into the net with a first-time shot on the run.

The next goal was more elegant and dynamic still. Chelsea zipped forward on a counter-attack and Hazard passed into the box where Samuel Eto’o responded with a delicate back-heel. It was inch-perfect for Hazard to steer home again.

His first hat-trick for Chelsea was completed in the 63rd minute from the penalty spot after a linesman had spotted the Newcastle defender Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa making a ridiculous rugby tackle on Eto’o at a corner.

Too often these offences aren’t punished but Hazard slotted home the goal and thanked skipper Frank Lampard for the courtesy of giving up penalty duty for a day.

David Luiz almost scored from inside the Chelsea half when a long ball forward bounced comically over Newcastle keeper Tim Krul but then drifted wide of the goal.

Towards the end Chelsea gave a debut to new £15million signing Mohamed Salah and twice he was swiftly in position to mark the occasion with a goal. The first shot he chipped wide of the post and he was then denied by a save from Krul.

It would have been the icing on the cake for Chelsea but ending the day on top of the table was sweet enough for the fans leaving Stamford Bridge with a spring in their step.

 

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



Man City 1-0

Guardian:
Chelsea make statement of intent by ending Manchester City's home run
Daniel Taylor at the Etihad Stadium


Chelsea have just reminded the Premier League, with a sharp dig in the ribs, that they have not forgotten what it takes to be champions. José Mourinho's team played as though affronted by the suggestion they would not dare to take on Manchester City at their own game and, in the process, there was a peacock-like spreading of feathers from the team in the darker shade of blue.
They won through Branislav Ivanovic's first-half goal but could also reflect on three other occasions when they struck the woodwork, alongside a clutch of other opportunities to emphasise their superiority. City, in stark contrast, looked like a side that had forgotten they had scored four goals or more on 14 different occasions this season.
They badly missed Sergio Agüero and Fernandinho but their shortcomings were considerable and a jolting night has heavy consequences for Manuel Pellegrini's side. Chelsea are now level on points, two behind Arsenal at the top, and the manner of the win left the clear sense that Mourinho's team have the togetherness, ambition and manager to last the course.
Mourinho made his own point with the adventure of his team. The first cries of "he's parking the bus" rained down inside the opening minutes. After half an hour it was "you're worse than Allardyce." Yet it quickly became evident that Chelsea would not restrict themselves to ploys of conservatism. They defended with supreme organisation and togetherness, with John Terry and Gary Cahill making immense contributions, but they also counter-attacked with great purpose and the taunts felt incongruous to how the match was actually shaping. Anyone who takes the lazy option and smears Mourinho's teams as routinely dour and unimaginative should be shown the footage of this match.
Chelsea's manager is also entitled to think his team could have made it easier for themselves. Cahill's header, direct from a corner, struck the post. Nemanja Matic, so influential in midfield, belted a 30-yard shot against the joint of crossbar and post and, at the other end, Samuel Eto'o hit the same part of the frame with a chance to make it 2-0 just before half-time. Chelsea could also look back at one opportunity when they broke, four on one, from deep inside their own half and Ramires could not beat Joe Hart with the final effort. Hart showed the assurance of old but few other players from Pellegrini's ranks played with any distinction. Yaya Touré did well in the opening half an hour but faded and allowed too much space behind him.
The sense that everything was not quite right could be gauged by the early show of anger Vincent Kompany directed towards Matija Nastasic after they both went for the same ball. Kompany's war cry was a warning that this was not a night for anyone to lose even a flicker of concentration but that was precisely what happened. Martín Demichelis, deputising for Fernandinho in midfield, was a danger to his own team at times, lacking control and often reckless with his decision-making. The Argentinian, bumped forward from centre-half, is in danger of becoming his team's most vulnerable point.
Mourinho had left out Oscar but his attacking quartet created all sorts of problems. Eden Hazard, in keeping with his recent form, dazzled on the ball and was probably the pick of the bunch, swapping flanks and taking turns to torment Pablo Zabaleta and Aleksandar Kolarov. Willian and Ramires played with high energy and movement behind Samuel Eto'o.
The midfield contest was won, ultimately, by Matic and David Luiz and it was strange to hear Pellegrini say his team had deserved "at least" a draw. Pellegrini also felt Hazard was "not crucial", despite all the evidence that left Mourinho acclaiming the Belgian as short of Cristiano Ronaldo and Lionel Messi but now "the best young player in the world". It was Hazard's cut-back, after ghosting past Zabaleta, that led to Eto'o driving his shot against the woodwork and he was also instrumental in the goal, drifting from left to right and neatly playing in Ramires for the first chance. Kompany charged down the shot but the follow-up effort, off Ivanovic's left boot, was a peach, arrowing its way diagonally into the bottom corner. Pellegrini was willing to admit it was a "beautiful" finish.
It was a night when Eto'o had his big-game head on and Matic showed why Chelsea had brought him back from Benfica. Willian justified his selection ahead of Oscar and, in defence, Terry demonstrated why Mourinho says he is currently the best centre-half in the league. Álvaro Negredo was not fully fit, to give him his due, but was taken off 11 minutes into the second half, whereas Edin Dzeko rarely troubled the opposition defence. Ivanovic was at his combative best and César Azpilicueta's performance made it a little clearer why Mourinho now prefers him to Ashley Cole.
David Silva's 73rd-minute free-kick required Cech to make a stretching save and there was another in the final exchanges to deny Stevan Jovetic, Negredo's replacement. Overall though, City did not have anything like their usual cohesion or impetus. Nastasic was grateful for the referee Mike Dean's leniency after pulling down Oscar, a late substitute, and the crowd were flat and jumpy. City had scored 72 times in their previous 18 home games but maybe there has been so much focus on that it has been overlooked that Chelsea have the best defensive statistics in the land. This was the night they supplied the hard evidence.
It was the first time City have not scored on their own ground in 62 games stretching back to November 2010 and absolutely nobody believed Mourinho when he said his team had no chance of winning the league before nominating Arsenal as his favourites. "Two horses and a little horse," he said of the title race. "A little horse who needs milk and to learn how to jump." But the jockey isn't half bad.

http://www.theguardian.com/football/gallery/2014/feb/03/manchester-city-chelsea-in-pictures
=================

Independent:
Manchester City 0 Chelsea 1
Off-colour City sent reeling by masterful Jose Mourinho
Sam Wallace

The plan was perfect, its execution flawless and, to amend a phrase from the man who orchestrated victory for Chelsea, this was the ultimate in 21st century football.
Jose Mourinho has pulled off a few tricks in his career; he has bullied and cajoled, intimidated and bluffed but when the pressure is on he really does know how to win a big game. Tonight, his Chelsea team beat the side who are on course to be the most prolific goalscorers in Premier League history and in doing so prevented them from scoring in a league game for the first time since November 2010.
What seemed inevitable 24 hours ago, that City always find a way through, is now no longer the certainty it once was after Branislav Ivanovic’s goal won the game for Chelsea. To be fair to Mourinho he has been defying the odds for years: winning titles against Manchester United and Barcelona, eliminating the latter in the Champions League. Victories like these are the kind of wins he has secured time and again with the customary ingenuity.
There are some who will always point to the resources at Mourinho’s disposal and say that he should be able to accomplish these kind of results, but even so it takes a certain kind of football mind to be able to adapt the way he did tonight. And it opens up a whole new front in the title race which is now led by Arsenal, two points in front of City and Chelsea who are divided by goal difference into second and third respectively.
It was the kind of night that did not require one of those unorthodox post-match press conferences from Mourinho to make it a memorable occasion, but he laid one on anyway. He claimed that Billy McCulloch, the long-serving masseur, had given the team-talk “all in Scottish, I didn’t understand a word”. He also advanced the theory that if it was a three-horse race then Chelsea were a “little horse, that needs to drink milk and learn how to jump”.
He is not to everyone’s tastes. But there can be no arguing with the quality of the performance from the winning side last night.
Yes, Chelsea had to hang on at the end at times, but that was inevitable although the figurative bus was never truly parked. Not when City only mustered their first meaningful shot on target with a David Silva free-kick that Petr Cech pushed away with 17 minutes of the game remaining.  Instead, a marvellous performance in midfield from David Luiz and Nemanja Matic kept City at arm’s length for all but the closing stages.
In defence, Gary Cahill was another contender for Chelsea’s best player. That was just edged by Eden Hazard who tormented City in the first half and the start of the second and was a key figure in the goal Ivanovic scored just after the half hour. Quite simply, City’s big players did not get close to the levels that those in the blue shirts of Chelsea attained.
The away fans kept in the ground after the game sang “Boring, boring Chelsea”, a nod to the stick Mourinho had taken from the home fans at the start of the game about his “s**** football”. By the end, there was no denying that Mourinho won the night all hands down. He got it right from start to finish: from the pre-match goading and on through the team selection and the tactics. He approaches the FA Cup tie with City a week on Saturday having beaten them twice in the league.
As for Manuel Pellegrini there was an element of denial about his refusal to accept his side’s ineffectiveness in midfield. An injury to Fernandinho in training on Sunday that meant the City manager chose to improvise with his old Argentinian warhorse Martin Demichelis in the centre.
Manchester City 0 Chelsea 1: Five things we learnt at the Etihad: Hazard is now ‘top player’; Demichelis could cost Pellegrini dear; Matic looks a class act; Stronger players than Mata; Chelsea are in the running 
Unfortunately for Demichelis, at times in the first half he was the proverbial shire horse sent out on the gallops with the chasers. The margins are so fine in these kind of games, when every shortcoming is exposed ruthlessly and every match-up finely balanced. He was found wanting. Chelsea absorbed all the City attacks they could – which was by no means all of them - and then hit City hard on the counter.
It was in those moments that Demichelis was buffeted. Not least when he was sold short by a pass on 27 minutes and having just beaten Willian to the ball was then forced to turn and chase the Brazilian after it was then played in behind him. Matic’s pass sent Chelsea forward – four attackers on one defender - and Willian’s lay-off left to Ramires should really have been converted.
Instead, Ramires’ shot was saved by Joe Hart and the thought occurred that another chance that good might not come Chelsea’s way for a while. Mourinho jabbed the air in frustration. Yet, as it turned out, Chelsea created three more by half-time and scored from one of them.
Mourinho picked a 4-2-3-1 formation with Luiz and Matic the big physical midfield presence to protect the back four from the running of Yaya Toure. The golden boy at No 10, Oscar, was stood down for the night in favour of the energy of Ramires, who joined Willian and Hazard in the attacking three. Hazard is the one man who gets some free rein from Mourinho – although not too much – and it was he who was central to the goal.
Having started slowly, City were dominant in the game by the 20-minute mark. Toure clipped one over the bar and then, on 18 minutes, got round Cesar Azpilicueta and cut the ball back for Silva who unaccountably struck the ball wide. At that moment it felt like a matter of time before the home team would score but the goal never came, and Chelsea edged their way back in.
Their goal on 32 minutes was begun by Hazard, cutting in on his right foot from the left and getting the ball back from Ivanovic to turn it back to Ramires in the area. On that occasion Ramires should have scored but Vincent Kompany made a fine block. The ball dropped to Ivanovic on the right and he struck a beautiful left-footed shot across Hart and into the far corner.
Hazard made another chance for Ramires with a minute to play until half-time and he hit the post. By which time City were looking uncharacteristically ragged and the tension among the home support was beginning to tell.
That anxiety was not helped in the second half as Chelsea exerted their grip on the game, particularly in midfield where Pellegrini seemed reluctant to make changes. He later said that James Milner was not fully fit. He brought off Alvaro Negredo ten minutes after the break, an unremarkable performance from him, in favour of Stevan Jovetic.
They had to defend when the moment demanded it, never more so than when Cahill hooked the ball out the area when Silva recycled a missed opportunity from the left-side. This was an excellent performance from the Englishman who moments later had hit the post with a header from a corner, starting his run outward from the goal-line and twisting as he jumped to head the ball goalwards.
Until the last 20 minutes, when City stepped up their efforts, they struggled to get to grips with the task facing them. They had been confounded in the early stages of the second half by the running of Hazard whose confidence was boundless when he had the ball.
After Silva’s free kick was saved by Cech he was obliged to make another good stop from Jovetic in the closing stages. Just before then Mourinho felt that Matija Nastastic should have been sent off for a foul on substitute Oscar on the basis it was the denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity. It was one of the few things that did not go his way.

Match details
Goal: Ivanovic 32
Manchester City (4-4-2): Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany, Nastasic, Kolarov; Navas, Toure, Demichelis, Silva; Dzeko, Negredo.
Subs: Negredo/Jovetic 55
Chelsea (4-2-3-1): Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Luiz, Matic; Ramires, Willian, Hazard; Eto’o.
Subs: Eto’o/Oscar 83, Willian/Mikel 90, Hazard/Ba 90
Booked: Manchester City Demichelis, Kolarov, Nastasic Chelsea Ivanovic, Matic, Willian
Man of the match: Hazard
Rating: 7

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

Telegraph:
Manchester City 0 Chelsea 1
Henry Winter

Who needs to park the bus when you’ve got the coach? Jose Mourinho’s tactical mastery won this match, instilling in his players the right mindset and game-plan to shred Manchester City’s 100 per cent home record in the Premier League. One-nil to the Special One.
Mourinho is so adroit at devising the right strategy for the major challenges, finding a way to draw at Arsenal and Manchester United, vanquish United at home and defeat City at home and now, deservedly, away.
Branislav Ivanovic drilled in the decisive goal, Eden Hazard was man of the match and Nemanja Matic was exceptional in midfield.
Gary Cahill and John Terry were so redoubtable a combination at centre half that there will inevitably be calls for Roy Hodgson to negotiate an international return for Terry.
That might require plenty of work to get all of Terry’s baggage through the England dressing-room door, and he would face a suspension under FA Code of Conduct rules, but the point remains that Terry has been revitalised by Mourinho.
As for claims that they might be over-defensive, Chelsea hit the woodwork three times. There was
no parked bus by Chelsea; Mourinho left the handbrake off and it rolled down and over City in the first half. They defended in numbers, hunted the ball in packs, pressing high, and also countered in numbers, pouring forward.
The Mourinho show continued afterwards, when he was in magnificent, smiling form as he reflected on the game, again playing down Chelsea’s chances of pipping City and Arsenal to the Premier League title. In assessing the title race, Mourinho compared Chelsea to a “little horse” which still needed more training.
Ignoring that this was the club of Paul Furlong, Mourinho has already turned them into thoroughbreds, particularly the likes of Hazard, who is fast galloping towards the very highest levels of the game.
Mourinho has also made Willian a more consistent force. Chelsea’s defence echoes the great Mourinho back lines, containing some of the indomitability of The Wall at Inter Milan, Walter Samuel. Terry and Cahill kept blocking, kept intercepting.
They had a hunger for this, a game-plan too, speedily reaching out for the jugular in a fascinating match. Chelsea were helped by City missing the injured Sergio Agüero and Fernandinho while Alvaro Negredo was not fully fit.
Chelsea were also assisted by Manuel Pellegrini’s decision to start Martin Demichelis in central midfield where his slowness in starting moves and dealing with Chelsea surges was highlighted throughout. Why James Milner not start?
Mourinho’s players were working so hard, their tone set by the coach himself who leapt around the technical area, commanding plenty of abuse from the neighbouring City fans. “Jose Mourinho, your football is se,” chanted the locals. Matching their players for rapidity of thought, Chelsea supporters retorted with: “Jose Mourinho, he’s won more than you.”
Twice a Champions League winner, Mourinho applauded the industry and tactical discipline of his players, saluting Matic as he ushered David Silva away from goal. He clapped as the outstanding Hazard tore upfield, running at and past Pablo Zabaleta.
The Belgian also tracked back tirelessly, delivering a commanding all-round display. Anyone seeking Mourinho’s motivational strengths made flesh need only admire the contributions of Hazard. Chelsea fans recognised it throughout, chanting his name.
Hazard graced this pulsating encounter, a strong advertisement for the Premier League, although rather less for the national team with more Serbs than English (4-3).
City had chances. Yaya Touré shot over and also linked well with the ­flitting Spanish firefly that Silva but they failed to break through the thick blue line.
Mourinho’s chosen ones were defending with organisation and concentration, expertly soaking up the pressure, looking to unreel their punches on the counter.
After 27 minutes, Matic found Willian and suddenly it was four on two but Ramires’s attempt to curl the ball around Joe Hart was anticipated well by the England international.
The attention was immediately dragged down the other end, Edin Dzeko and Silva combining before Matic, arms tucked behind his back, blocked Jesús Navas’s shot.
Back the game went, flowing down the other end, leading to Chelsea’s 32nd-minute goal. Hazard, inevitably, played a part, cutting the ball in to Ramires, whose shot was blocked by Vincent Kompany.
Out of nowhere, Ivanovic stormed on to the loose ball, powering it left-footed past Hart. Ivanovic ran away, pretending to wash his hair, seemingly mimicking Hart’s shampoo endorsement.
Chelsea could have added more either side of the break. Running on to a Hazard cross from the left, Samuel Eto’o hit the bar as the visiting fans sang “boring, boring Chelsea”. Their spirits nearly lifted even higher shortly into the second period when Matic let fly from range, almost snapping the post.
Chelsea struck the upright again after 67 minutes. Willian curled over a corner, and Cahill rose strongly, heading against the post. It seemed to stir City and Cahill was soon demonstrating his defensive qualities. First he blocked a shot from Aleksandar Kolarov shot, then cleared a Navas cross before sliding in to divert for a Kolarov ball for a corner.
Willed on by their fans, City attacked and attacked, looking for hope from Silva. Touré won a soft free kick off Willian, the Ivorian ­having looked to have fouled the Brazilian. Silva took the free kick left-footed, lifting it over the four-man wall and seemingly heading for the top corner.
Petr Cech stretched out his left hand and nudged the ball over. Kolarov then drilled the ball across from the left, placing it perfectly for the run of Silva, but the Spaniard shot wide.
Chelsea remained a threat, particularly from set pieces. With 13 minutes remaining in the match, Willian delivered another corner from the right and the movement of Cahill was again a menace, setting up a chance for Terry but Hart saved.
There was a sense of gathering despair in City’s moves.
Touré clipped the ball towards the far post towards Jovetic but Ivanovic dispossessed him. Matic calmly intercepted a Dzeko cross. Cesar Azpilicueta headed clear from Kolarov’s shot.
Then Oscar turned Nastasic on the halfway line, being clearly pulled back. Mike Dean, the referee who handled a high-speed, high-stakes game well, ruled that the offence was too far out and pulled out only yellow.
Mourinho was incensed, demanding a sending-off but the Portuguese had the last laugh, the points, the reward for a tactical masterclass.

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

Times:

Ivanovic puts final touch on Mourinho masterpiece to close gap

Manchester City 0 Chelsea 1

Oliver Kay

This was one of those evenings when the hype surrounding José Mourinho feels entirely justified. It was a triumph of spirit and organisation that blew the Barclays Premier League title race wide open last night as Chelsea not only underlined their own credentials but exposed the hidden chinks in Manchester City’s armour.
 Sometimes it feels wrong to portray Mourinho as being so central to the Chelsea story, particularly when they have individuals performing as well as Eden Hazard, John Terry, Gary Cahill and Nemanja Matic did last night, but it was a performance that bore their manager’s hallmark — a team playing and winning with hearts and minds, frustrating City at one end of the pitch and picking them off at the other.
 Branislav Ivanovic scored the only goal of the game, an improbable left-foot shot that flew past Joe Hart, but it says everything about Chelsea’s display that they could feasibly have won by a greater margin. It is only six days since Tim Sherwood said, after seeing his Tottenham Hotspur team beaten 5-1 at White Hart Lane, that City were playing football from “a different planet”, but they were brought down to earth with a bump by Chelsea’s blend of resilience and intelligence.
 Having taken the lead in the first half, Chelsea struck the frame of the City goal on three occasions through Samuel Eto’o, Matic and Cahill. City started and finished the game as if they meant business, but for long periods in between they seemed flummoxed by Chelsea’s utter refusal to succumb to the fate suffered by every other visiting team in the Premier League this season.
 Defending valiantly, controlling midfield — where, in the absence of Fernandinho, City saw Yaya Touré and Martín Demichelis struggle against Matic and David Luiz — and counter-attacking incisively, Chelsea ensured that the match was played on their terms, which meant precisely the terms that their manager demanded.
 Mourinho said in September that he disliked the football he had seen from Chelsea last season, talking sniffily about Rafael Benítez’s tendency to play David Luiz in midfield and Ramires on the right wing. It is about more than mere positional deployment, though; on this occasion, with Luiz joining Nemanja Matic in midfield while Ramires reverted to the right, Chelsea performed with an intention to do far more than neutralise City’s threat.
 The first 15 minutes or so were tough for Chelsea. City started out at a fearsome pace, with Yaya Touré giving the impression that he was ready to run the midfield in Fernandinho’s absence. A typical driving run took Touré into the Chelsea penalty area, behind Matic, in the eighteenth minute, when his cross was flicked just beyond the far post by David Silva. Before that, he had sprayed a first-time pass out to Aleksandar Kolarov and been inches away from getting on the end of the full back’s excellent cross.
 These days, though, Touré is a player who is far less comfortable when forced on to the back foot. It is one thing to leave the legwork to Fernandinho, who is blessed with astonishing energy and an ability to link play as well as break it up, but it seemed irresponsible to leave Demichelis as he did at times in the first half.
 Chelsea’s players sensed that, as their manager had told them, there was space to exploit on the counter-attack. In the 27th minute, Demichelis, over-exposed by Álvaro Negredo’s poor pass, won the ball from Willian, but Matic’s first-time pass left Chelsea with four players against City’s one as they approached the penalty area. Willian slipped the ball through for Ramires, but Hart made a fine save.
 For City, it proved a temporary reprieve. Five minutes later, Hazard dribbled infield from the left wing, exchanged passes with Ivanovic and found him on the right of the City penalty area. Hazard picked out Ramires, whose shot was blocked by Vincent Kompany, and when the ball ran loose, Ivanovic struck an excellent left-foot shot from the edge of the penalty area that flew into the bottom right-hand corner of Hart’s goal.
 City looked rattled. Demichelis and Kolarov were booked in quick succession for fouls, as had been Ivanovic and Matic, but more disconcerting for Pellegrini was the uncertainty in his team’s defending. Hazard’s influence was growing . He sent Hart sprawling to make a save before gliding away from Zabaleta and picking out the unmarked Eto’o, who sent his shot against the crossbar.
 Half-time gave City’s players the opportunity to regroup , but even though Touré dropped a little deeper in the second half, the pattern continued. Kolarov gave the ball away to Luiz, who crossed to Willian, whose shot was deflected wide by Zabaleta. Matic let fly with a 25-yard shot that beat Hart but hit the outside of a post. Midway through the second half, Chelsea hit a post again, with Gary Cahill unlucky after beating Touré to Willian’s corner.
 Pellegrini knew he had to take change something, with Negredo his surprising choice to make way for Stefan Jovetic, which allowed Silva to operate in a more central role. Improvement was minimal at first, but Silva tested Petr Cech from a free kick before shooting wide.
 It was better from City, but it was nothing like enough to break Chelsea’s resistance. With four minutes remaining, Matija Nastastic misjudged a bouncing ball on the halfway line and, in desperation, tugged Oscar’s shirt as the Chelsea substitute threatened to race clear. Mourinho and his players demanded that Mike Dean showed the red card. Dean responded with a yellow. Mourinho was apoplectic.
 One can only imagine Mourinho’s reaction had Cech not saved from Jovetic in stoppage time and had Nastasic then not miskicked when opportunity knocked with almost the last kick of the game. A City equaliser would have been an injustice. Chelsea were more than worthy winners.


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


Mail:
Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea: Super Bran! Ivanovic strike sinks Pellegrini's men and keeps Jose in the title hunt
By Martin Samuel


He got everything right. The team, the strategy, the tempo, the mood. He knew the stakes, he knew how to win, he knew when to risk, when to gamble, when to hold. It was, quite  possibly, the perfect game.
There have been more than a few landmark performances in the career of Jose Mourinho, but a very strong case can be made that this was his finest as a Premier League manager.
The impact on the title race was not immediately obvious. Chelsea started the day in third place and ended it there, too. The same with Manchester City in second. Goal difference separates them now, rather than three points, but goal difference can still win leagues and if the competition ended tomorrow the trophy would go to Arsenal.
No, Mourinho’s impact was greater than a mere jostling for position. He exposed a myth, he challenged the perceived wisdom, he inspected the evidence and threw it contemptuously to the floor. His revelation, the statement he made to the rest of the league, was that Manchester City are not invincible. There should be no procession, no deference, no awestruck observation of their inevitable progress to the finishing tape.
This team can be beaten. This team have weaknesses. That was Mourinho’s message for the masses. Chelsea’s performance was an  invitation for others to do the same, to get at City’s defence, to place obstacles in the path of that  all-conquering midfield.
What Mourinho proved was that if a coach can cause City as many problems as they are causing him, they are vulnerable. Few coaches have Chelsea’s squad, of course, or Mourinho’s intelligence in deploying it but now there is hope and a map that shows where the treasure is. This was worth more than just three points to Chelsea.
At the end, Mourinho’s emotion overwhelmed him. He punched the air, roared, chest-bumped every staff member and player in the vicinity. Then he shook Manuel Pellegrini’s hand. The pair have met nine times as managers, Mourinho winning seven and drawing one.
Chelsea have claimed all six points from City this season and this was an improvement on the win at Stamford Bridge.
Few thought Chelsea could win here. Week by week the growing momentum behind City’s title challenge has been obvious. Thumping victories, against some of the biggest and best in the land, their rivals stumbling as statisticians talked of scoring records, points records. And then, six days ago, as Chelsea and Arsenal drew with inferiors, City put five past Tottenham at White Hart Lane.
The facts, the numbers seemed overwhelming. Yet Mourinho showed where there is a will there is a way, even against  Manchester City. They could have been three clear at half-time and hit the woodwork on three occasions. Pellegrini said City deserved a draw but few agreed. His team forced some good chances near the end, but  Chelsea should have been  comfortable by then. The best team won, simple as that.
The sole mitigation for City was that the injury to Fernandinho - four weeks out is the worst-case scenario - threw them a loop in midfield. Martin Demichelis was deployed in his place but was soon overrun.
Former City man Dietmar Hamann described Yaya Toure as a liability on Match of the Day earlier in the season and was mocked but it was possible to see what he meant.
Chelsea were so fast on the counter-attack that discipline was required but Demichelis could be seen looking around desperately for reinforcements. City played into Chelsea’s hands, but it was a trap perfectly set.
The announcement of Chelsea’s team saw much crowing about Mourinho parking the bus but, despite the solid base, it wasn’t like that at all.
Mourinho picked players to thwart City in midfield where they do most damage - Nemanja Matic, in front of the back four was quite exceptional - but he also packed his starting XI with enough pace to trouble City on the break.
Mourinho knew City would see plenty of the ball at home and prepared for it, but he also planned to shock them. So in a first half when City enjoyed the lion’s share of possession, much of it around Chelsea’s area, the visitors scored the only goal, had the best chance and hit the bar.
All on the counter-attack, obviously, but nothing wrong with that. Some of the greatest teams have played on the counter and those coached by Mourinho are invariably champions of the art.
The first 45 minutes, certainly, was as good as it gets; a lesson in how to absorb pressure and return it as energy. In science fiction films the aliens have machines like this. They suck all the firepower out of humanity’s weapons and pay it back in one mighty explosion.
That is what Chelsea did at the Etihad. They should have gone a goal up after 27 minutes when a sustained period of City pressure ended with a suicidally under-hit pass from Alvaro Negredo which necessitated a frantic last-ditch tackle from Demichelis to stop a Chelsea break.
He was unlucky with the rebound, and Chelsea were away. They were four on two when Willian slipped the ball to Ramires, who had only goalkeeper Joe Hart to beat. Ramires is a fabulous lively presence but he is no Deadeye Dick and his finish allowed Hart to make a fine save.
Just five minutes later, however, Chelsea’s tactics paid off. Eden Hazard — Chelsea’s creative heart who was dealt with accordingly by City, much to Mourinho’s fury - exchanged passes with Ramires, whose shot was charged down forcefully by Vincent Kompany. The ball ricocheted to full back  Branislav Ivanovic for another decisive goalscoring intervention,  striking a low shot from just  outside the area that flew across Hart and into the bottom corner.
The Etihad watched, stunned. City never recovered. From there, Chelsea executed their game plan better. City at times looked like the Arsenal of old. Lots of lovely  possession, lots of lovely football, but strategically short. Chelsea knew what they were about; they could easily have won by more.
There was a minute to go before half-time when a deep Hazard cross from the left picked out Samuel Eto’o in a surprising clearing at the far post. He struck the ball first time but against the bar. It was the first of a few like that.
Chelsea hit the woodwork twice in the second half - three strikes is the most by any team in the  Premier League this season - once from a long-range shot by man of the match Matic that grazed the bar, then from a Gary Cahill header that struck a post, full on.
By contrast, City were surprisingly subdued. David Silva came close twice - one near miss, one fine Petr Cech save - and Stevan Jovetic brought the ground to its feet in injury time, but they never truly got behind Chelsea, not once. It was a master class. A game-changing, myth-busting master class. And it is all very different from here.

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Mirror:


Manchester City 0-1 Chelsea: Mourinho's men take the points in a thrilling battle at the Etihad
Martin Lipton


They stopped the "unstoppables". Touched the "untouchables". Beat the "unbeatables".
Now, can anybody truly believe Jose Mourinho doesn't think Chelsea can win the title?
Here, as Manuel Pellegrini watched his side shed a plate without Fernandinho and Sergio Aguero, City suddenly looked like a one-trick pony.
The visitors though, though, came through the greatest test with renewed faith, belief and conviction.
Still third, behind City and leaders Arsenal. But with the wind in their sails, stronger than at any time since the "Special One" came back into Stamford Bridge.
This was a Mourinho master-class, no question.
It is one thing the manager winning the tactical battle, though. Altogether another for the players to put it into action and carry it off.
And carry it off Chelsea did.
Better at the back, with John Terry outstanding, Gary Cahill not far behind, Alvaro Negredo and Edin Dzeko turned into flat-track bullies.
Better, once they found a way of neutralising Yaya Toure, in midfield, David Luiz' bumper car approach hugely effective, Nemanja Matic appearing the missing piece in the jigsaw.
And when they got the ball down and played sublime counter-attacking football, with Eden Hazard and Willian a constant menace, better at the other end as well.
This, remember, was against a team who had scored 115 goals already this season, who had bar Bayern Munich destroyed all Etihad comers since August, who had not failed to score a home League goal in 61 previous games, stretching back to November 2010.
But not by "parking the bus". Not by flooding midfield, setting up an impenetrable wall, relying on one lucky break.
In truth, the only surprise was that the margin was provided by perhaps the most unlikely source, Branislav Ivanovic's left foot.
It could have been, should have been, deserved to be greater. Chelsea, after all, through Samuel Eto'o, Matic and Cahill, hit the woodwork three times. Ramires missed when he surely had to score. Hazard and Willian had chances to punish City's defensive shortcomings too.
Yes, it had not started like that, not with Toure bulldozing his way through the central battlefield, David Silva elusive and electric.
Had Negredo, in the one moment he showed up, hit the target, had Toure got on the end of a move of the season contender which ended with Aleksandar Kolorav whistling through the six-yard box, had Silva swept in, rather than wide, from a Toure run and cross, it might, might, have been different.
But even when they were on the ropes, Chelsea were counter-punching with power and penetration, a footballing equivalent of Muhammad Ali's "rope-a-dope" tactic against George Foreman in the Rumble in the Jungle.
Had Fernandinho been alongside Toure, rather than Martin Demichelis, Mourinho might have withdrawn Ramires into a central three, although he insisted he named his side at lunch-time and left the final words to masseur Billy McCulloch.
Instead, he played him wide on Kolarov, adding to the attacking threat.
Ramires, through the inside left channel as Willian led a four versus one counter, Matija Nastasic the loan defender, should have put Chelsea ahead.
Five minutes later, though, they had their advantage.
Ivanovic slipped Hazard into the hole behind Kolarov, Vincent Kompany, just, blocked Ramires but Ivanovic smashed the loose ball home from 18 yards.
Before the break, with City at sixes and sevens, Eto'o should have buried them from Hazard's cross, striking the top of the bar. And the second half was a similar story, City huffing and puffing, Chelsea carrying all the threat.
Matic, so clever and impressive, thrashed against the outside of the angle of post and bar from 25 yards, Cahill nodded a Willian corner onto Joe Hart's left-hand upright.
That sparked the belated response, Chelsea finally having to defend.
But Cahill cleared when Dzeko's mis-hit fell to Negredo's replacement Stevan Jovetic, Petr Cech dealt with Silva's free-kick, the Spaniard steered a Kolarov cross wide.
Mourinho, increasingly exuberant on the sidelines, was apoplectic as Nastasic only saw yellow for dragging Oscar back on half-way.
He might have exploded if Jovetic's late swerver had beaten Cech. It didn't.
Chelsea got all they deserved.
So did City.
Game on.

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Express:

Man City 0 - Chelsea 1: Jose Mourinho's men give Manuel Pellegrini the Blues
FOR ALL their goals, Manchester City have had a nagging vulnerability about them all season.
By: Richard Tanner

European champions Bayern Munich exposed the Achilles heel way back in October and even Championship side Watford took a 2-0 lead against them in the FA Cup.
Jose Mourinho never misses a tactical trick and time and again last night Chelsea drew City in, then hit them on the break.
They scored only one goal – a sweet strike from Branislav Ivanovic – but they could have had three or even four, with Samuel Eto’o, Gary Cahill and Nemanja Matic striking the woodwork and Joe Hart pulling off a wonder-save from Ramires.
The victory carried huge significance in the Premier League title race with Chelsea ending City’s 100 per cent home record and becoming the first team to stop them scoring at the Etihad in the league since Alex McLeish’s Birmingham slugged out a goalless draw back in November 2010.
The result brought them level on points with City but nowhere was the result celebrated more loudly than at the Emirates, with Arsenal staying top of the table.
Fernandinho’s hopes of impressing Brazil boss Luiz Felipe Scolari ahead of next month’s friendly against South Africa were dented by an injury picked up in training on the eve of the game.
With Javi Garcia also injured and Jack Rodwell not match fit, Martin Demichelis was pressed into action as the midfield anchor man and Matija Nastasic recalled as Vincent Kompany’s defensive partner.
It left City with a worrying lack of pace in certain areas and ensured some anxious moments in the first half.
City needed Yaya Toure at his inspirational best – and the Ivorian did not disappoint as City dominated the first half-hour. His pass created the first chance in only the second minute but Alvaro Negredo blazed high over the bar.
Toure then sent Aleksandar Kolarov away down the left before racing into the penalty area where he was only inches away from connecting with the return pass.
Chelsea were struggling to contain him. He fired a shot just over the bar after David Silva wrong-footed Chelsea’s defence then turned creator again, exchanging passes with Navas on a trademark barnstorming run before firing the ball across the six-yard area where Silva shot just wide of the far post.
City fans, encouraged by their team’s positive start, taunted Mourinho about the quality of Chelsea’s football. But it was tempting fate.
Chelsea had already threatened to expose City on the counter-attack several times and came close to taking the lead from one such swift break after 27 minutes. Pablo Zabaleta’s poor pass left Chelsea with four against two but Hart came to City’s rescue with a stunning save just as Ramires looked certain to score from Willian’s pass.
Hart could do nothing, though, when Chelsea took the lead five minutes later. Kompany threw himself in front of Ramires’s close-range shot but the ball rebounded to Ivanovic just outside the penalty area and he could not have hit a better shot with his weaker left foot, sending it flying like an arrow into the far corner of the net.
And it could have been worse for City before the break.
Zabaleta made a vital interception to stop Willian scoring from Eto’s pass. And Eto’o crashed a shot against the bar after Hazard, who had left Zabaleta for dead on the right, set up the chance with a low ball that skidded right through City’s six-yard area.
To add to City’s worries, two of their ball winners, Demichelis and Kolarov picked up cautions for fouls in the first half, leaving them walking a disciplinary tightrope for the rest of the game.
The mounting tension saw an angry verbal exchange between Mourinho and Alvaro Negredo.
Chelsea, oozing with confidence, continued to cause panic in the City defence in the second half. Cahill outjumped three defenders to thump a header against the post and Nastasic was lucky not be sent off when pulling back Oscar on another Blues break, Mike Dean instead showing a yellow card.
And for the first time this season, City looked short of attacking ideas. Dzeko fluffed a great chance to equalise when he failed to make a proper connection with Navas’s cross.
Silva also went close but, despite City’s late salvo, Chelsea held out.

Manchester City (4-4-2): Hart; Zabaleta, Kompany, Nastasic, Kolarov; Navas, Demichelis, Toure, Silva; Dzeko, Negredo (Jovetic 57). Booked: Demichelis, Kolarov, Nastasic.
Chelsea (4-5-1): Cech; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Matic, Luiz, Ramires, Willian (Mikel 90), Hazard (Ba 90); Eto’o (Oscar 83). Booked: Ivanovic, Matic, Willian. Goal: Ivanovic 32.
Referee: M Dean (Wirral).
Next up: Manchester City – Sat: Norwich (a) league.
Chelsea – Sat: Newcastle (h) league.

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Star:

Man City 0 - Chelsea 1: Ivan the Incredible! Serbian ace Ivanovic earns Blues vital win
MANCHESTER CITY were brought down to earth last night by the genius of Eden Hazard on the pitch - and Jose Mourinho off it.

By David Woods

Six days ago Tim Sherwood claimed City played football from another planet after his Tottenham side were beaten 5-1 at home.
With all respect to the Spurs boss, he is no Mourinho. And the Chelsea coach shot down City, who had won all 11 league games at home this season and not failed to score in the league since November 2010.
Hazard was sensational. Last week Mourinho claimed he could be up with Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo. This performance suggested he already is.
As for Mourinho - all this talk of his men not being ready for the title is nonsense, especially if he gets his tactics right and his men follow his instructions to the letter, like they did last night.
He sent out David Luiz and Nemanja Matic - who is already looking like a bargain at £21m - to hold, with Hazard, Ramires, Willian and Samuel Eto’o breaking at pace and interchanging all the time, to bemuse and unsettle City.
The goal hero in the 32nd minute was Branislav Ivanovic, amazingly with his left foot. The Serb right-back does not get many, but he gets some vital ones. Before this his previous two were the winner against Aston Villa in Mourinho’s second game back and the only goal of the match as Chelsea beat Benfica in May to win the Europa League.
They won’t be playing in that next season as they are level on points now with second-placed City and two behind leaders Arsenal.
They have done the double over City, taken four points off champions Manchester United and are the only team to have stopped the Gunners scoring at home in the league, drawing 0-0 at The Emirates.
And his men did not park the bus, instead relying on resolute defence and superb breaks. Eto’o hit a post with a shot, Gary Cahill with a header and Matic smacked a stunning shot against the angle of post and bar - the latter two efforts coming in the second half.
City had their chances too. Yaya Toure came close on a number of occasions and David Silva poked wide twice and saw Petr Cech deny his well-struck free-kick.
Cech - one of many heroes on the night - also denied substitute Stevan Jovetic late on.
But it was Hazard who was the star when it came to attacking. He made the left flank his kingdom, with jinking runs galore.
For the winner in the 32nd minute he found Ramires twice, the second time after drifting to the right and setting up the No 7 for a shot which Vincent Kompany blocked.
But the ball went straight to Ivanovic, who smashed a wonderful, low angled drive which flashed past Joe Hart.
At the back John Terry, Cahill, Ivanovic and Cesar Azpilicueta formed a thick blue line which City, who have been scoring for fun, just could not breach.
Boss Manuel Pellegrini now has to lift his men - scorer of 115 goals this season before last night - after their spell was broken by the magic of Hazard and the cunning of Mourinho.
At the death Matija Nastasic fluffed a great chance. Shortly before Mourinho was furious he had not been sent off for hauling back substitute Oscar on the halfway line.
It was perhaps just as well he did not score - as heaven knows how Mourinho would have reacted!
As it was, he celebrated with a quick punch of the air.
He knows full well his men will now be full of self-belief - especially as they are performing so well in the games that count. Who knows how high they can go.

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