GAME OVER!
A weakened team, 1-0 down after 120 seconds — it was a Stoke surrender... now Hughes must pray it’s not...
THE dystopian vision of the Premier League articulated by Jamie Carragher last week, the ‘joke league’ where the gap between the top and the rest is embarrassingly wide, took fresh form at Stamford Bridge in a match that was over as soon as the teamsheets whirred out of the photocopier in the press room.
This was not about a team massing their defence, as Newcastle had done against Manchester City. This was about a team who did not even get to that point.
This was about a team who effectively conceded defeat before the match began because they knew they would be hopelessly outmatched.
Stoke, sucked unexpectedly into a grim fight against relegation and facing a Chelsea side in fine recent form, were missing Kurt Zouma, Ryan Shawcross and Bruno Martins Indi anyway.
Their beleaguered manager Mark Hughes also left Xherdan Shaqiri, Joe Allen and Eric Choupo-Moting on the bench, saving them for a match he thinks they have a chance of winning, against Newcastle tomorrow.
So we knew what was coming. It took a little over 120 seconds to arrive. That was when Antonio Rudiger scored Chelsea’s opener. Danny Drinkwater added a second a few minutes later. Game over.
The rest of the match was a glorified kick-about. It was only ever a question of how many Chelsea would score and how much Stoke could limit the damage.
There was still plenty to admire in Chelsea’s display. The skills of Pedro and Willian were a joy to watch and it was good to see Drinkwater approaching the form that made him such a mainstay of Leicester City’s title-winning team.
But sometimes it felt almost as if the champions were playing in a vacuum. Stoke played with the demeanour of sacrificial lambs. That was the worst of it: they knew what was coming, too.
Stoke are now hovering perilously above the bottom three and speculation about Hughes’ job is increasing. He made it plain afterwards that he is staking much on the game against Newcastle and that it could be a pivotal moment in his team’s campaign.
‘We were stretched today,’ Hughes said, ‘and they had the quality to hurt us even with our best available 11. I made decisions I thought would help us on Monday. If we can get the win against Newcastle that we hope we can get, it will be a good return for the Christmas period.
‘It would mean we’d have two wins, a draw and a defeat against Chelsea.’
Chelsea’s win took them above Manchester United into second place and ended what has been a fine year for Antonio Conte on a high note. Any notion of a pursuit of runaway leaders Manchester City may be forlorn but Chelsea are beginning to look like the best of the rest.
‘To finish this year in this way is great for me and the club and the fans,’ said Conte, who guided the club to the title in May at the end of his first season in English football. ‘It was a fantastic year. To win the title in England is not easy and to be able to do this in your first chance…I will remember this year forever.’
This was probably the easiest game of Chelsea’s year as well. Only two minutes had gone when Victor Moses skipped past his man on the right wing and was brought down. Willian curled his free-kick in with pace and purpose and Rudiger soared above Stoke’s central defenders to guide his header past Jack Butland.
It was well created and well executed but it was also way, way too easy. Stoke struggled to get any kind of foothold in the game. They could not keep possession and they were a shambles at the back. Chelsea looked like they were going to score every time they attacked and before 10 minutes had elapsed they were two ahead.
This time, the goal was created by Pedro. He teased his man on the Chelsea left and made space for a cross. His centre was deflected but it looped to Drinkwater, who was waiting on the edge of the box, and he smashed a stunning volley into the top corner of the net with the outside of his right foot. Butland did not move.
It was Drinkwater’s first goal for Chelsea in the 13 appearances he has made for the club since his injury-blighted move from Leicester and he was playing with the kind of style and control that made him such a crucial member of Claudio Ranieri’s title-winning side.
Chelsea should have gone three ahead when Alvaro Morata easily beat Stoke’s attempt at an offside trap and bore down on goal from the right. He hit his shot with power but Butland spread himself well and made an excellent block.
It was a brief reprieve. Chelsea did not let up and midway through the first half Willian probed the Stoke defence again on the edge of the box. He played a short square pass to Pedro, who bought himself a few feet of space by letting the ball run and tricking Josh Tymon.
Pedro took one touch and then angled his shot past Butland into
the corner of the net. Something approaching boredom began to set in for Chelsea after that and after the interval Stoke nearly pulled a goal back. Charlie Adam played a sublime pass beyond Gary Cahill for Saido Berahino to run on to but when he tried to curl his shot round Thibaut Courtois, the keeper dived to his left to push it away.
Chelsea did not allow many incursions like that and Morata missed another golden chance after an hour. Put clean through for the third time, he hit his shot too close to Butland and it was blocked.
In a game where easy goals were there for the taking, Morata looked a long way from his best. It was nothing more than an inconvenience for Chelsea, though. Twenty minutes from the end they got the fourth goal when Willian was brought down in the box by a clumsy Geoff Cameron.
Willian picked himself up and drove his penalty down the middle to beat Butland.
Second-half substitute Davide Zappacosta stroked home the fifth in the dying minutes before the Premier League’s two nations took their leave of each other.