Blues switch from dire to delightful to lift cloud over Poch
AND so the pendulum swings again. From dire to delightful in the space of three days, the riddle of this Chelsea squad is no closer to being solved but the pressure on Mauricio Pochettino has certainly eased, if only for a while.
This was a fine performance. Better than fine, actually — it was excellent. They were fast, they were precise, they were tight at the back and they were dynamic on the ball. They fought and they cared and they carried themselves into the FA Cup fifth round at a canter against a very good team.
If that’s not the magic of the Cup then the term requires redefining, because on Sunday against Wolves they effectively marched Pochettino to the cutting block. It was just about the only decisive move they made on a day of stupefying incompetence.
To go from that to this was quite the trick, but they pulled it off. We await the tweets of Thiago Silva’s wife to see if Pochettino has achieved a thumbs-up, though more than anyone he knows the virtue of going one step at a time at a club that has spent so much time on its backside.
For now, it will suffice that, barring a few tricky minutes at the start, they dominated an Aston Villa side that has won 13 of 16 home games this season.
Conor Gallagher gave Chelsea the confidence of a quick lead, Nicolas Jackson lifted them to the rarefied air of comfort in an away fixture by adding a second, and Enzo Fernandez brought delirium with a free-kick of the highest order after the break. Moussa Diaby scored a consolation in stoppage time but that should not conceal the scale of the hiding.
Those goals were the punctuation points, but the amazement came from how many errors were corrected in comparison to recent games. An element can be traced to the strange, uncharacteristic lethargy of Unai Emery’s team but that was also inflicted upon them.
Chelsea pressed well, tackled hard and broke at pace in multiple directions — all facets that were conspicuously absent in two straight defeats. Whether it is sustained in any meaningful way is the key question but Pochettino lives on for now, which felt far from a guarantee earlier in the day. Indeed, as he disembarked the team bus on arrival, he had been greeted by Villa fans in precisely the same way he was taunted out of Stamford Bridge by Wolves supporters on Sunday: ‘You’re getting sacked in the morning.’
Against the familiarities of that backdrop, he sent out a team with notable differences to the one trounced at the weekend. Aside from the demotion of Silva, Raheem Sterling and Christopher Nkunku were also dropped. The latter was a precaution against overuse after his difficulties with injury, but Sterling’s omission rang like an indictment of his underwhelming performances against Liverpool and Wolves.
As for Villa, Emery swapped out Ezri Konsa as a consequence of his knee issue and recalled Matty Cash in the only change to the side that crushed Sheffield United.
That match had been a stroll in the park and in the initial stages here it felt like no great upgrade on the opposition — Chelsea twice presented Villa with free-headers six yards from goal and suffered for neither of them. The first of those, after Moises Caicedo fell in an attempt to challenge John McGinn, was trickier and mishit by Leon Bailey, but the second, for Alex Moreno, was outright wasted. They would be costly for Villa as it happens.
Chelsea’s breakthrough, if we can call it that in view of their campaign, occurred around the moment when supporter dissatisfaction was being manifested with a chant for Roman Abramovich. That sentiment won’t change but the immediate mood lifted with
Gallagher’s strike, which followed a quick break after Boubacar Kamara was sacked near halfway.
Jackson led the break, squared to Noni Madueke and he laid off for Gallagher, who side-footed to the top corner from just inside the area. It was a lovely finish by a fine player and with it the Chelsea chant switched: ‘How s*** must you be, we’re winning away.’
Such are Pochettino’s defensive vulnerabilities, Villa had two quick chances through Bailey and Ollie Watkins, but the screw turned with Jackson’s header. Credit goes
to Malo Gusto for the cross but Jackson, so maligned this season, was the master of the move, first with the subtleties of his run into the space between Cash and Diego Carlos, and then with the header.
Clenching his fists, Pochettino’s relief was not disguised. Maybe there was some bafflement too, because how can this side veer between good and terrible so freely? Gusto was proof of the point — he had some dire moments against Wolves, so frequently was exposed by overlaps, but here was jointly Pochettino’s best man of the half along with Madueke.
The second opened with a moment of greater class, this time with Fernandez’s free-kick, won when he was brought down 25 yards from goal by Youri Tielemans. Emiliano Martinez, his team-mate from Argentina’s World Cup-winning side, couldn’t get a touch on a corker of a hit.