Chelsea v Aston Villa | Premier League | Match Highlights

Villa made a decent start to the game and Chelsea were late on several challenges inside the opening few minutes. We did eventually get the ball and achieve some possession, only to face all eleven Villa players inside their own defensive third.

Despite that, we were able to generate some chances, taking the lead from the first one of those, even: Cucurella stepping up to win the ball, getting it back from Jadon Sancho to put a ball across the box for Nicolas Jackson to arrive and finish expertly with his left, kissing it off the inside of the near post.

We kept up our positive play, exerting solid control over the game, generating several more opportunities either from possession or from the high press. It was from the latter kind that Jackson was almost gifted a second — Martínez rescued his own horrendous pass with a desperation dive, but would end up hurting himself in the process.

A few minutes later, a great move down the middle led to a nice shot by Enzo from the top of the box to double our lead.

Villa did get a couple looks on the counter or from a few mistakes at the back in that first half, Robert Sánchez made a couple excellent saves to preserve our advantage.

The second half continued along a similar pattern, but we failed to take advantage of multiple opportunities to put the game to bed — Jackson and Palmer both guilty of not finishing off more than presentable chances.

Thankfully that profligacy didn’t come back to bite us, and then Palmer did shut the door completely with a fantastic strike into the top corner.

Great goal, great game, great win!

Carefree.

• Three changes from last weekend, with Lavia, Neto, and Sancho coming in and Badiashile, Félix, and Madueke dropping out
• A couple little wrinkles in the lineup, too: Caicedo the nominal right back, inverting into midfield to push Enzo forward next to Palmer in possession; also, Neto on the right with Sancho on the left.
• Another goal for Nico; another goal for Palmer — both on 8 in the league
• Enzo scores for the second successive start
• Cucurella, Palmer, Madueke with the assists
• Fofana injury (hamstring) a concern
• Nice reception for Ross Barkley returning
• Six unbeaten now, moving back up to third, at least for now, level on points, goals, and goal difference with Arsenal
• KTBFFH