The Premier League champions scored four goals in a Premier League match for the first time since last January as they tore Newcastle to shreds at Stamford Bridge
With the pressure off and his mask on, Diego Costa helped Chelsea finally rediscover the swagger of champions, brushing aside Newcastle with the sort of contempt which makes you wonder how their total car crash of a league season could ever have been allowed to happen.
The crushing win over January’s big spenders Newcastle in years gone by would have represented the laying down of a marker and sent shivers down the spine of their nearest rivals.
Convincing as it might have been, the win over relegation-threated opposition lifted Chelsea only to the less than dizzy heights of 12th place in the table, above Crystal Palace and nestled in behind Liverpool, the other majorly underperforming giant of English football.
Guus Hiddink had enjoyed an 11-game unbeaten start to his second spell in charge of Chelsea, steadying the ship and slowly knitting back together the team spirit upon which last season’s resounding success was built.
Until Saturday evening, however, the football had been largely uninspiring and cut from the same Dutch cloth currently suffocating a soporific Manchester United forward line. Unlike Van Gaal, however, it is fair to say Hiddink has always preferred his star men to play with a certain amount of freedom and creative license.
It was only a matter of time before someone was handed a spanking and Newcastle were the all too willing recipients. Chelsea simply tore into the visitors’ statuesque defence and feasted on the wide open spaces they were permitted to strut their stuff in.
A broken nose suffered in training on Thursday was never likely to dent Costa’s appetite for goals and so it proved. Only five minutes had passed when Willian was allowed to dart in from the right and feed the ravenous Costa, who slid the ball past Rob Elliot for his eighth goal in his last 11 games.
Four minutes later Pedro punished a Rolando Aarons error with the sort of finish he has specialised in down the years. Through on goal he was ice cool and rendered the goalkeeper an almost total irrelevance.
It was the same story just shy of the hour mark when the Spaniard scored his second after Steven Taylor’s error and the cake was iced seven minutes before the end when Bertrand Traore slid home his first ever Premier League goal.
The game had been over as a contest as early as the 17th minute, however, when Chelsea’s undisputed player of the season Willian smashed home after more generous defending and smart approach play from Costa.
Typically, in this season of almost constant upheaval and strife, Hiddink was provided with a problem he may struggle to solve ahead of Tuesday’s Champions League clash with PSG. John Terry hobbled off shortly before the break after landing awkwardly following a challenge with Aleksandar Mitrovic and is a serious doubt.
With or without Terry, at least Chelsea will head to the French capital to take on the Ligue 1 champions in decent spirits and on the back of their first five-goal haul in the league since last January.
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