Alvaro hits first double in a year

WELCOME back Alvaro Morata, Chelsea have missed you.

Struggling for form and often playing second fiddle to Olivier Giroud, Morata has been missing in action too often for the Blues this season.

Not any more. The Spain striker grabbed his first brace since September 2017, scoring in back-to-back Premier League games for the first time in almost as long.

And Pedro added a third to see off stubborn Crystal Palace, who scored in the second half through Andros Townsend, as Chelsea extended their unbeaten run to 16 games in all competitions and moved back up to second spot.

Morata now has six goals in all competitions and four in his last five league games. Not bad for a player supposedly suffering a crisis of confidence.

He should have had a hat-trick too, but went for an elaborate chip from the edge of the box when clean through on goal in and Morata was the beneficiary, swivelling on the spot to smash it home from close range. Smelling blood, Willian then had the ball in the back of the net shortly afterwards but it was ruled out for offside. So Chelsea went in at the break totally dominant and quietly confident. But it went wrong for them shortly after half-time. A weak press from Ross Barkley and two passes later James McArthur took advantage of some poor positioning from David Luiz to play in Townsend.

Smash

He still had Kepa Arrizabalaga to beat, but he made no mistake to score his first league goal since March and get the away end jumping.

Chelsea almost responded when Luiz sent a free header from a Willian cross flying goalwards but Hennessey tipped it away.

Blues boss Maurizio Sarri had seen enough and sent on Eden Hazard, and the Belgium star quickly took a free-kick which resulted in a breakthrough. It was really poor from

Palace, though, with Mamadou Sakho inexplicably ducking underneath the ball, and Tomkins failing to clear.

Lurking on the far side of the box, Morata couldn’t believe his luck and curled his shot into the top corner to restore Chelsea’s lead.

They didn’t hang around before killing it off after that, with Marcos Alonso swinging in a cross which Morata left for Pedro to run on to and smash home.

Roy Hodgson looked ashen-faced and you could see the confidence being sucked out of his team.

They are going to have to find more than Zaha to rely on if they want to avoid another long, hard relegation battle.

But for Chelsea, the talk is all about the title again. Few expected them to be seriously in the hunt this early into Sarri’s reign. Yet that’s exactly where they are right now.