There are few more damaging times to concede and even though Adam Johnson pulled one back with a brilliant, swerving shot with just under half an hour to play, too much damage had been done.
Chelsea's first came after a dominant opening spell. Carlos Cuellar failed to cut the ball out near the halfway line, the ball was fed to Victor Moses who found Eden Hazard. The Belgian looked up and sent a cross to the near post which was stabbed in with the sole of his boot by Torres at the near post.
The setback briefly galvanised Sunderland, with Johnson producing his best football in red and white stripes. A flick on by Connor Wickham found Stephane Sessegnon, who forced a good save from Petr Cech.
A dangerous cross from Johnson needed a vital touch from Branislav Ivanovic, but while Sunderland were able to put Chelsea under pressure, they could not shut them out at the other end.
Ramires had made good progress into the area, but when Seb Larsson slid in, the Brazilian merely put his body in the way and drew the foul. Torres converted the penalty with the confidence of old.
Chelsea were cruising two minutes after the break when Phil Bardsley's dreadful control presented Torres with the ball. His shot cannoned back off the crossbar ideally for Mata to volley home.
Sunderland kept going and Cech made two good saves from Johnson and Craig Gardner, but Chelsea were too good to let them back into the match.
This was Chelsea's first league win since October 20th, secured in impressive style. Much more of this and Benítez may be able to go through an entire game without hearing Di Matteo's name being chanted.
No comments:
Post a Comment