Chelsea maintained the pressure on their Manchester Rivals after recording an impressive win away at the Bet365 Stadium against Stoke City.
The Blues ran our 4-0 winners courtesy of a first Chelsea hat-trick from Spaniard Alvaro Morata and a superb finish by Pedro.
There were periods where Stoke made it difficult for Chelsea and threatened to come back into the game as they did against Manchester United a couple of weeks back but the Champions were a bit too strong for them to overcome.
Here are the key talking points from the match:
1) Diego who?
Agreed it is too early to say that Alvaro Morata will serve as an adequate replacement for the departing Diego Costa but what is the harm in being in optimistic about it? The Spaniard is level with Romelu Lukaku and Sergio Aguero on the top of the scoring charts with 6 goals to his name already. His pace offers Chelsea a different dynamic from Costa’s strength and his link-up with Hazard and Fabregas looks tasty already.
2) Solid defending from a “makeshift” backline
David Luiz was absent with suspension and Gary Cahill was rested which saw Azpilicueta partner with Rudiger and youngster Andreas Christensen in the back three but one could only gaze as the defenders performed exceptionally. Christensen is much less error-prone than David Luiz and rarely puts a foot wrong. Rudiger is certainly an upgrade over club captain Gary Cahill thanks to his pace and strength with age finally seeming to catch up with veteran Gary Cahill. This could very well be Chelsea’s first choice back three come the end of the season.
3) Bet365 is a difficult place to visit
Stoke showed us that against Manchester United and had it not been for an extremely makeshift defence due to injuries and Kurt Zouma not able to feature against his parent club, they crumbled against the Champions. Despite that, on many occasions, they tried to attack Chelsea and looked threatening for large parts of the game. Mark Hughes must make sure his men are not demoralized by the scoreline and replicate their fine home performances in away games as well.
4) 3-4-3 or 3-5-2?
Conte once again showed his ability to change tactics according to the requirement of the game. He started with a 3-4-3 with Bakayoko partnering Kante in the middle but did not get control of the game. Brought on Fabregas for Pedro and Hazard for Willian to complete the switch to 3-5-2 and it worked wonders for Chelsea especially with the class of the two aforementioned players.
