Aston Villa 1 Chelsea 2
Two goals in two minutes boosted Chelsea’s chances of a top four finish and punctured Aston Villa’s dwindling survival hopes.
Kortney Hause’s surprising goal just before half-time allowed Villa to glimpse a precious and improbable victory, but that prize soon vanished amid a rapid-fire salvo from Christian Pulisic and Olivier Giroud. Once they edged in front, Chelsea never looked like being caught. Frank Lampard hopes the same stays true of the race for Champions League qualification, where his team now enjoy a five-point lead of Manchester United and Wolves. Villa remain stragglers in second last position in the table.
This was Villa’s second outing in the post-lockdown Premier League environment and they hoped that the experience they gained from playing Sheffield United here in the season re-opener on Wednesday would give them an advantage over Chelsea, who had not contested a competitive game since 8 March. The Blades had hardly endorsed the theory of superior sharpness by flopping to defeat to Newcastle earlier on Sunday but Dean Smith was sufficiently enthused by Villa’s performance earlier in the week that he sent out the same starting lineup, meaning Keinan Davis led the attack again and goalkeeper Orjan Nyland retained his place after escaping unpunished for carrying the ball over the line against Chris Wilder’s men.
Malfunctioning technology was not so kind to Chelsea’s goalkeeper here, as Villa Park’s sprinklers suddenly activated in the fourth minute to give Kepa Arrizabalaga an unexpected splashing. Happily for the Spaniard, play was up the other end at the time. It would be concentrated there for most of the match.
Chelsea, showing scant ill-effects of their long period of inactivity, controlled midfield, with N’Golo Kanté ubiquitous in his first deployment since since February. Ruben Loftus-Cheek, meanwhile, returned to action after an even longer absence, his inclusion from the start here marking his first appearance of any kind since he injured his ankle in May 2019. He, like his teammates, looked comfortable for most of a first half in which Villa mostly stood off the visitors.
Willian, with bursts of acceleration that left opponents flailing, threatened from the start. If Mason Mount had been able to get on the end of a vicious cross from the Brazilian in the third minute Chelsea might have been in for a fun afternoon, but Matt Targett intervened well. In the ninth minute it was the turn of Tyrone Mings to come to the rescue, the centre-back hurling himself in front of shot by Willian.
Villa did little at the other end to perturb Chelsea until the 16th minute, when Giroud charged down a shot by Conor Hourihane after a corner. Five minutes later Nyland had to fling himself to his right to paw away a rasping shot from 20 yards by Mount. As the pressure from Chelsea increased, William tried to shatter the hosts resistance on the half-hour, driving another dangerous ball across the face of goal. Giround lunged for it but missed it by millimetres. Moments later Mount pinged in another cross from a similar position, and this time Nyland punched it clear.
Arrizabalaga did not have to stretch himself until the 33rd minute, when Anwar El Ghazi forced him to parry a drive from 25 yards. One minute later El Ghazi picked out John McGinn with a lovely cross from the left. The Scot, having made one of his characteristic bursts from deep, did not make a clean connection with his header from eight yards.
Chelsea sought to re-establish their dominance. Mount danced past Hourihane down the right and flashed in a low cross that Loftus-Cheek came achingly close to converting. The visitors’ frustration deepened when Villa struck a surprising blow just before the break. Grealish, receiving the ball in an attacking position for one of the few times in the game, offloaded to Douglas Luiz, who clipped a searching cross from the right to the back post, where Villa had two players against one defender. Arrizabalaga blocked Hause’s initial shot but the centre-back reacted smartly, swivelling at the edge of the six-yard box and shunting the ball over the line.
Villa had kept a rare clean sheet on Wednesday and now knew that another would lift them out of the relegation zone. Could they withstand the pressure Chelsea would inevitably apply? After seeing his team make no inroads in the first 10 minutes of the second half, Lampard sent reinforcements from his bench. One of the new arrivals, Pulisic, made his mark within five minutes, guiding a cross from the right by César Azpilicueta into the net from close range via the underside of the bar. Two minutes later Azpilicueta reprised his run and cross from the right, and this time Giroud converted from 10 yards. – Guardian
