Birmingham: With their performance in comprehensively defeating Aston Villa 3-1, in the FA Cup fourth round replay, Chelsea showed they were worthy of the near £1billion spent on the squad. After their listless display in the defeat in the Premier League last weekend, their relieved manager, Mauricio Pochettino said: “We are all together. I saw the team free, enjoying playing football, and that is important.
“We fought for each other. We fought for our fans, for our badge, for the coaching staff. That is the connection we need. Now the challenge is to be consistent. We are living in an era where it’s easy to abuse. The players are human. They are not robots. We need to understand that we are playing football.”
He added: “Enzo (Fernandez) showed why he is here. He showed his quality. But we did not have any doubt about him, about Moises Calcedo, about any young player who arrived here with an expectation to win titles and score in every single match. It is important about creating a good energy between our fans and the club, the players need help. Today the fans were fantastic.”
Chelsea were in control and dominant for the greater part of the match. There was fluidity in their attack. They made changes in the team and switched players’ positions to great effect. It all worked with fluency and all three of their goals were superbly executed.
They went into the lead early with a fine combination of passes. Ben Chilwell intercepted a pass between two Villa players and flicked to Enzo Fernandez who then found Nicolas Jackson. The striker then advanced before cutting back to Noni Madueke who set up Conor Gallagher to drive in a right-footed shot from the centre of the box in the 11th minute.
The visitors doubled the lead in the 21st minute. The move began on the left and switched to the right where Madueke made good ground before passing to Malo Gusto, while Nicolas Jackson swiftly moved in the space between Matty Cash and Diego Carlos. Gusto then sent a perfectly timed cross for Nicolas to head into the net.
Villa did have chances earlier to score from two headers from the edge of the six-yard box but failed with both attempts. They could have pulled one back in added time at the end of the first half but a powerful drive by John McGinn was palmed away by Djordje Petrovic.
Nine minutes into the second half, Chelsea put the game beyond Villa with the third goal. Fernandez was fouled by Youri Tielemans 25 yards from goal and the £105 million midfielder took the free kick and sent a beautiful curling shot into the top corner. A consolation goal for Villa came in the first minute of added time when Moussa Diaby’s shot went in off the post.
Villa manager, Unai Emery said: “Congratulations to Chelsea. We were excited. We were motivated. But they were clinical. They were so, so clinical. We competed but we were sometimes underperforming with their players. We have to accept defeat and move on.”
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