Álvaro Morata double helps Chelsea sweep past Crystal Palace

Chelsea are not dismissing opponents with quite the same mouth-watering panache as Manchester City, or even drawing as much focus in the title race as a resurgent Liverpool. They are not even watertight on home territory these days, always offering opponents a hint of reward. Yet, for all Maurizio Sarri’s public utterances to the contrary, they are a side refusing to believe this is merely a two-team title race.

This was an impressive victory not least because Chelsea were challenged for periods, and even pegged back to parity, but they never panicked. It helped they could send on Eden Hazard from the bench in the aftermath of Crystal Palace’s equaliser to provide an assist within 91 seconds of his introduction, but their dominance through the last half-hour was total. Álvaro Morata would have finished with a hat-trick had he not taken the bold decision to attempt to chip Wayne Hennessey, at 6ft 6in, from point-blank range in stoppage time. The goalkeeper plucked that effort from the sky, but the damage had long since been inflicted.

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from Football | The Guardian https://ift.tt/2JDKCWr