IT’S A BLUES CRUISE
Champions turn on style to brush aside listless Everton
IF Antonio Conte’s view is that he has not been allowed to recruit sufficiently this summer then this Chelsea performance will not help him.
So complete a victory was this, so perfectly executed, that it was at times like watching Chelsea from last season. Viewing these 90 minutes in isolation, you could be fooled into thinking that they do not need anybody else.
This was not the fretful, chaotic Chelsea who lost so haphazardly here to Burnley on the opening day and it was not the Chelsea who beat Tottenham against the flow of play at Wembley a week ago.
No, this was a performance of such dominance and completeness that it was reminiscent of the manner in which Conte delivered an unexpected Premier League title last time round.
The winning margin was two goals but it could have been more. Everton, listless after a heavy week at home and in Europe, were barely competitive and created one chance — wasted by the unimpressive Sandro Ramirez — all afternoon.
Chelsea dominated the ball and the chances. In Cesc Fabregas and Willian they had the game’s best two players. Centre forward Alvaro Morata is not the finished Premier League player — how could he be? — but he held the ball up well at times and scored a goal that will help him.
Chelsea scored twice in the first half — beautifully through Fabregas and routinely through Morata — and may have added to that had they been a little bit more clinical on a day of baking temperatures in west London.
Conte’s bench still looks thin and this is his point, this is his worry. Compared with some of his rivals, he has a lack of cover. This is what Conte fears will get Chelsea in the end — and he may be right. Conte will, for example, have noted that Manchester City’s bench at Bournemouth had John Stones, Yaya Toure and Sergio Aguero sitting on it.
So the argument will go on and at some stage may not end well for Chelsea. But here yesterday the champions were on cruise setting and it must be said that their response to that embarrassing first-game defeat has been impressive. Last week’s win at Wembley was earned on the back of cussedness. Here, Chelsea were simply the better team by a long way.
Perhaps the last thing Everton needed after a game at Manchester City last Monday and a Europa League match in Croatia on Thursday was a fixture at the champions in unremitting heat. Certainly they looked leggy and couldn’t get a foothold as Idrissa Gana Gueye and young Tom Davies were overwhelmed in the centre of the field.
Fabregas, Willian and Pedro simply had too much room in which to play and Chelsea threatened at regular intervals before eventually taking the lead just before the half-hour.
It was a lovely goal, too. Fabregas linked up with Willian down the right and after playing a one-two with Morata, he dealt with an awkward dropping ball beautifully by striking it on the half-volley with the outside of his right foot across Jordan Pickford into the far corner of the goal.
Chelsea scored again in the 40th minute as referee Jon Moss played an advantage to allow Cesar Azpilicueta to cross for Morata to head in.
Amusingly, Conte had been furious with Moss’s initial decision to play advantage after a foul on the edge of the penalty area and was still raging at the fourth official when Morata scored.
For Everton, a hard afternoon only got harder. Ramirez laboured up front but was unimpressive while Wayne Rooney and Gylfi Sigurdsson were supposed to support him either side only to get sucked into their own half in search of the ball. Rooney, in particular, is no longer made for afternoons like this.
He was booked, and after such an excellent start to his second Everton spell, this was too reminiscent of his latter days at Manchester United.
Too much effort for too little result. For Chelsea, the opposite was true.