All eyes were on Villa’s youngsters to prove how much they had improved since last Christmas when they were trounced at the Bridge 8-0.
Chelsea looked confident early and brushed the ball around easily, then swept long balls over the Villa centre backs, Vlaar and Clarke, in for the injured Baker, only to see Ba jump too early offside.
Chelsea gave Villa a stern warning when Hazard got behind the defence, but soon after Villa got punished by the Belgian who stayed just onside and his curling shot was saved by Guzan but bounced unluckily into Luna’s chest and dropped into the empty net.
It was all Chelsea after that. Villa could not get possession and Benteke just like at the Emirates on Saturday was struggling to get into the game. Chelsea refused to let Villa settle and picked up a lot of loose balls as the away side had to rush passes.
Gradually Villa gained ground in midfield and Benteke began controlling Terry. As Benteke got better so too did the rest of the team and a sharp skillful run by Delph seemed to lift the whole team.
There was a blow for Villa when Ba again offside accidentally caught Clarke in the face leaving a gash that needed five stitches. Lambert decided not to wait for him to get stitched up and sent newcomer Okore on for his debut 4 minutes before the 45 minute mark.
Weimann was angry at the ref for what he felt was a shirt tug. Okore was miss-timing his tackles in his endeavor to find the game pace.
Just before the break Benteke won the aerial ball but the ball was cleared straight to Westwood. He found Agbonlahor who made a nice first touch to beat Ivanovich he looked up to see BENTEKE whose first touch was sublime and second was deadly accurate hitting the inside post and in.
Lampard and Ramirez walked onto the pitch for the second half looking as though they had been punished. Both were tying up their shorts as if they had had a bare ass spanking by Diretor Jose.
The whole Chelsea team seemed motivated by something in the second half as both sides went full throttle at each other. Villa seemed to be handling Ba and the Chelsea midfield comfortably and Okore was settling in nicely and showing great footwork that made up for his startling lack of stature compared to Ba.
As the game wore on it looked more and more like Villa might just sneak a second, while Chelsea didn’t seem to trouble too much. A superb move ended with Weimann hitting a first time shot into the near post that Cech got a hand on, then a lovely move saw Benteke dummy the ball and Cech was beaten by Gabby’s shot that sailed just a yard high.
With Hazard, Mata, Lampard and Oscar on display it might surprise people to know the most skillful lad on the field on the night was Delph. This kid is just getting better and still has bags of room for improvement which will come with time.
Ivanovich looked very relieved to only receive a yellow when he elbowed Benteke in the neck and just two minutes later the refs decision seemed to change the course of the game when the big right back headed home despite Villa’s defence holding a perfect line and IVANOVICH clearly offside.
Villa introduced Tonev with 10 minutes left as they couldn’t get the ball off Chelsea. He helped a lot forcing the Blues back a little as they looked to hold on. Villa pushed forward and the goal was on Weimann’s boot as his sweetly struck volley was blocked by Cech’s knee.
The ref struck his final dagger into Villa’s chances when Terry, with his hand stretched unbelievably in the air should have been called as the ball struck his arm and bounced out of the box. Considering the ref had given 2 handballs against Benteke when he had his hands by his side and no time to get them out of the way, this was ridiculous.
Mourinho played everything down saying Benteke plays for the fouls and that Paul Lambert reminds him of himself when he was starting out. I appeal for decisions quite a bit, but when I was younger I appealed for everything. That is how Paul is. Paraphrasing the “Special One”
So far Villa are looking so much better than a few months ago and 255 minutes of game time by the 3 newcomers between them down, these lads look good.