MIGHTY MORATA
Chelsea’s hat-trick hero makes Diego look so last year
IN the time it has taken Diego Costa to fly to Madrid and sign for Atletico, Chelsea fans have forgotten all about him.
Replacement Alvaro Morata bagged a splendid hat-trick yesterday, and was serenaded by the club’s noisy travelling support who sang: ‘He comes from sunny Spain, he’s better than Harry Kane’ rather than the unsavoury chant from earlier in the season.
Morata was brilliant from start to finish, scoring his opening goal after only 83 seconds and maintaining his levels so he could poach the second and third towards the end.
Though Stoke were disrupted by injuries, there was no doubting the former Real Madrid star’s quality. It was different from the way Costa bullied the same opposition in March, but just as masterful.
With Pedro also on the scoresheet, Chelsea comfortably kept their 100 per cent away record and showed that this season’s title race might not be a two-horse affair between the Manchester clubs.
A lot has been made of the strength in depth available to Pep Guardiola and Jose Mourinho, but Chelsea’s bench yesterday included Gary Cahill, Cesc Fabregas and Eden Hazard — not too shabby.
‘Alvaro did very well. He scored a hat-trick just like Michy Batshuayi did in midweek. It’s very important for a striker. I am pleased about his performance but also the team as it shows they are creating chances,’ said Chelsea manager Antonio Conte.
‘It’s always a difficult game at Stoke. We struggled to win 2-1 last season with a late goal.
‘The key this time was to start well and score early. Then we were in control of the game. Morata was very good. Now he has to continue this way to be a great striker.’
Stoke’s line-up looked vulnerable, with injuries to Kevin Wimmer, Geoff Cameron and Ryan Shawcross leaving Bruno Martins Indi as the only available centre-half, with loanee Kurt Zouma ineligible to face his parent club.
Mark Hughes’ three-man central defence contained two full-backs, and he had two attack-minded wingers as wing-backs. That disjointed look cost them a goal in just the second minute. Cesar Azpilicueta pinged a long ball and Morata found acres of space between Glen Johnson and Martins Indi. His finish — one touch to control and then a low shot past Jack Butland — was world-class.
Chelsea’s second arrived after 30 minutes courtesy of Stoke captain and their most experienced player, Darren Fletcher.
The 33-year-old midfielder attempted a chest pass to Martins Indi just outside the penalty area but played the ball into the path of Pedro, who finished brilliantly from 18 yards.
Fletcher knew he had cost his team, screaming out an expletive at the top of his voice as the ball hit the back of the net.
Stoke needed something to lift the crowd and Mame Biram Diouf raised the volume with a spectacular overhead kick from Joe Allen’s cross that flew just over the bar.
There was more drama at the start of the second half when Marcos Alonso received a bang in the face from Diouf and vented his frustration by kicking Allen to receive a yellow card. He then caught Diouf, prompting Stoke fans to bay for a red card.
Alonso was removed by Conte after 59 minutes, Hughes considering it evidence that Chelsea knew he’d been lucky to escape a dismissal. ‘He should have been sent off,’ said the Stoke manager, who was irritable through the game and warned by the fourth official to calm down at one stage.
The Italian denied that was the motivation for replacing his left wing-back. ‘Honestly, it was a tactical substitution. I could see they were preparing to bring on Peter Crouch.
‘You know very well we always suffer with him and for this reason I preferred to reinforce our defensive line with Gary Cahill and to move Azpi to wing-back.’
Cahill duly came on for Chelsea, with Crouch arriving two minutes later and promptly winning a knockdown that Diouf fired over.
But Morata underlined why Chelsea spent a record £60million transfer fee on him last summer.
After 77 minutes, he capitalised on an intercepted pass from Johnson to accelerate away from the defender and past the struggling Fletcher.
The move was completed by a lovely dinked finish over Butland. The hat-trick goal arrived five minutes later. Fabregas fired a pass to Azpilicueta, who managed to chest the ball into Morata’s path without breaking stride.
Chelsea’s No 9 tapped in one of the easiest goals of his career and Hughes said: ‘He is a top quality striker, clearly. For that money you would expect that and if you look at the chance conversions, Chelsea had seven shots on target and he scored three. We had 13 and didn’t score any.
‘You can’t win Premier League games if you make catastrophic errors and we made at least three.
‘We were still very much in the game at 2-0 but then Bruno went off because he’d done his groin. Once we were down to no centrebacks, they were able to embellish the scoreline.’
As Morata was engulfed by teammates, the travelling Blue army broke into song. There must have been alarm in the directors’ box, given that an earlier ditty for Morata contained anti-Semitic content.
But the fans heeded warnings not to repeat it and sang about their new hero being better than Harry Kane. And possibly Costa, too.