Aston Villa 1-2 Chelsea
With a win essential for both Aston Villa and Chelsea, this was always going to be a tense Premier League afternoon at Villa Park.
The home side needed the points to move out of the drop zone and, ultimately, to safety. The visitors needed to maintain a top-four spot and the lucrative carrot of Champions League football next season – especially with their hopes all but over for this term.
What followed was a largely one-sided contest, the outcome of which remained in the balance until the end but in which there was no disguising the difference in class.
Highlights of the game
In the end, two goals in as many minutes boosted Chelsea’s chances of a fourth-place finish as Frank Lampard’s side increased their lead over Manchester United and Wolves to five points.
Villa remain stragglers one place off the bottom but far from doomed with enough glimpses to suggest they could pull clear.
The two key Premier League 2020 highlights arrived very quickly just after the hour mark.
The captain Cesar Azpilicueta had a hand in both as he set up two goals in a single Premier League game for only the second time in his 263-game English top-flight career.
First, his cross from the right was guided into the net by substitute Christian Pulisic, the American making his mark from close-range five minutes after entering the fray and not for the first time in an important way this season.
Then, almost immediately, Azpilicueta reprised his run and his delivery was converted by Olivier Giroud. From that moment, Villa never looked like coming back.
The SBOBET Premier League 2020 betting odds had been on course for a shock at the break when Villa took a lead against the run of play just before the interval.
Kepa Arrizabalaga failed to hold an Anwar El Ghazi shot and Kortney Hause reacted quickly to bundle in the opener.
Tammy Abraham, who scored 26 goals in 40 appearances on loan at Villa last season, was kept on the Chelsea bench until the later stages as Giroud led the line, but it was two midfielders who had earlier come closest to breaking the deadlock.
Mason Mount saw a powerful strike kept out by Villa keeper Orjan Nyland before Ruben Loftus-Cheek, making a welcome return to the side after a year out with injury, just failed to turn home a teasing ball into the danger zone.
It proved to be a false dawn for Villa, who have now lost five Premier League games after scoring first this season – two more than any other side in the competition.
For all their promise, unless they reverse that trend quickly, their fate is inevitable.
Key statistics
Villa have lost 10 of the past 11 league meetings with Chelsea, winning the other at home in March 2014.
Chelsea’s current six-match winning league streak against Villa is their best ever in this fixture.
Giroud has now scored in each of his last six Premier League appearances against Aston Villa (nine goals in total), with this his first match against them since netting a hat-trick for Arsenal on the final day of the 2015-16 season.
Pulisic has been directly involved in seven goals in his last eight away Premier League games (five goals, two assists).
Jack Grealish was fouled nine times today, the most fouls on one player in a Premier League match this season. The last player to be fouled as many times was Wilfried Zaha v Man Utd in May 2017 (10).
Hause’s opener means he has now scored in each of the top four divisions in English football, with today just his seventh league goal overall.
This was the 50th Premier League fixture between the clubs. Chelsea lead by 26 wins to Villa’s 12, with 12 draws.
Dean Smith’s side have taken just two points from their last 22 games against the established top-six Premier League sides since beating Spurs away in April 2015.
Their only victory in the past nine league fixtures was at home to Watford in January.
This was Chelsea’s first Premier League away success in 2020 and only the second time they have recorded successive Premier League victories this season.
They have now conceded 40 league goals in the current campaign, as many as in the whole of last season.
Lampard scored twice in a 2-1 victory on his last appearance at Villa Park in May 2013 to become the club’s all-time leading goalscorer.
What’s next?
The congested conclusion to the 2019/20 campaign continues apace now with Villa facing Newcastle on Tyneside at 6 pm on Wednesday evening (June 24). Chelsea get an extra 24 hours to prepare for the visit of outgoing champions Manchester City, who are at Stamford Bridge on Thursday night.
It’s a quick turnaround yet again for Villa who host Wolves in a Midlands derby next Saturday lunchtime, the day before Chelsea travel to Leicester in the FA Cup quarter-finals.
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