Villa undone by Chelsea
Written By: Robert Halter
With Chelsea playing Bayern Munich in the Super Cup, the Blues fixture against Aston Villa was moved forward and after winning starts for both clubs in their Premier League campaign there was a high level of expectancy under the floodlights of Stamford Bridge. It took just seven minutes for Chelsea to register a goal as Oscar cleared the way for Eden Hazard and from the left side of the penalty area Hazard’s curling strike was pushed by Brad Guzan against his own left back Antonio Luna for a miss fortunate own goal. Villa were forced to shoot from range midway through the first half as Karim El Ahmadi’s strike drifted over the top. In the thirty fifth minute, Oscar pushed forward and his low drive went narrowly wide of the left post. Six minutes before the break, Ciaran Clark’s nasty collision while Demba Ba, left Clark with a head gash and he was replaced by Jores Okore. But Villa found a route back into the game during first half stoppage time, as Gabriel Agbonlahor’s measured cross fell to Christian Benteke and with a crisp finish, Benteke found a way past Cech, who was beaten at his near post, which brought the match back to level pegging. On just over the hour mark, Chelsea breathed a sigh of relief as Agbonlahor cracked a bending strike narrowly over. Villa again nearly struck gold on sixty three minutes when Benteke’s floating ball over was met by Andreas Weimann at the far post and Cech got the faintest of touches to turn the ball wide. It was time for Jose Mourinho to switch his pack as Romelu Lukaku replaced Ba and Andre Schurrle took over from Juan Mata. Against the run of play, Chelsea regained their advantage on seventy three minutes, after Villa captain Ron Vlaar infringed Lukaku and from Frank Lampard’s free kick on the right side, a bullet header by Branislav Ivanovic, crashed the back of the net. Lukaku could have made the game safe, four minutes later but as the ball broke clear, Lukaku could only find the side netting. Villa made the late introduction of Aleksandar Tonev for El Ahmadi before the Blues switched Oscar for Marco van Ginkel. With five minutes of normal time remaining, Cech came to Chelsea’s rescue with a double footed block to deny Weimann’s low shot after Benteke had won the header to set up the chance. Villa’s luck had run out when they were denied a stonewall penalty after the ball hit John Terry on the arm from Agbonlahor’s aerial challenge.