Chelsea entered their second match this week with a hot start, and got Juan Mata back in the squad. Aston Villa was riding high after a great win against Arsenal at the weekend. Let’s see if the young guns could upset the league favorites.

Antonio Luna (OG), 6th Minute 1-0

Eden Hazard gets free in the box, and forces an error by both Brad Guzan and Antonio Luna for an early 1-0 lead.

This screen can be time stamped at 5:15, and is a perfect example why sometimes teams like Chelsea have just “too much talent.” Barely five minutes in, and they are moving the ball up the side of the pitch, with their LB overlapping. Now this screen is a pass backwards – eventually all the way to Ashley Cole. Chelsea reset their play, but most importantly turn the heads of the defenders. Look – each of the three defenders here is watching Ashley Cole move back, thinking they have time to rest.

Excuse the motion blur, but here is where Chelsea make this goal. Instead of gathering, and playing back to the keeper, Cole is confident and heads the ball forward back to Frank Lampard. As noted before, Aston Villa’s defenders seem to be taking a break once they believe the ball was cleared. Here, Cole keeps the attack alive, with both Demba Ba and Eden Hazard still high up the pitch to press on. Surely, Villa wasn’t ready for this much pressure from the onset.

Instead of showing Lampard make his next pass into Oscar, look at what is he does before he even gathers the pass. He looks directly at his target, Oscar. He knows where the pass is going, and he again continues to move the ball forward. He has Ramires in the middle of the field, but instead he pushes the pace and tests the defense. You can see that both Ciaran Clark and Ron Vlaar are just looking at each other, instead of anticipating the next pass.

Here shows why Chelsea’s talent often wins them so many games. Oscar receives the ball, and Villa’s defense finally picks up on the play. Matt Lowton, Ron Vlaar, and Karim El Ahmadi all come to pick up Oscar and prevent the entry pass. Did we forget about poor old Eden Hazard?! Of course. Oscar’s passing ability is one thing, but Eden Hazard alone in the box is about as sure as Balotelli’s penalties. Villa over-pursued likely because of the threat of one player, but didn’t realize there’s more than one threat on the field.

Oscar threads the pass like clockwork. Luckily, for Villa, this is where Chelsea are sometimes at a disadvantage. Oscar, Lampard, and Ramires are all back in midfield trying to move the ball forward, and only Demba Ba is left in the box by himself.

Hazard opts to do it himself. He is better on his right foot and reads Villa’s strong marking of Ba (two men right on him), and figures he has just one option- shoot. Again, he is just too fast, and all defenders were just too far away for them to close down Hazard in time. Ba here is also crucial. Like any good striker, he crashes the net completely and doesn’t give up. Because of that, defender Antonio Luna is drawn deep into the box, and the rebound off of Brad Guzan hits him and ends up in the back of the net: 1-0 Chelsea.

Chelsea had just too many options on this play. Oscar, Hazard, Lampard, and Ba are all incredibly skilled players, but it seems as though Mourinho has them playing extremely aware football, allowing them to continue broken plays instead of restarting completely. Great work by Ba, Lampard, and Cole here to keep the play alive and let Eden Hazard do what he does best.

Christian Benteke, 45th Minute 1-1

Gabby Agbonlahor’s first real attack down the left punishes Branislav Ivanovic and Benteke does what he does best on Villa’s first shot of the match: put the ball in the back of the net.

Here’s the beginning of the attack, which is being defended well. Chelsea has nearly everyone marked well, and Ashley Westwood doesn’t seem to have many options. Up until this point, Agbonlahor hasn’t challenged Ivanovic down the left hand side, and you can see this in his positioning. He takes the instep, as to cut off the pass to Benteke as he is the true danger man. Benteke’s positioning here is another great example of a striker coming back deep enough into the midfield, and we’ll see why next. This is not to mention his winning of the header that gets the ball to Westwood. Westwood opts to move forward with a through ball to Agbonlahor, who has just the slightest step on Ivanovic.

Agbonlahor receives the ball on his left foot and reads two options here.

Ivanovic is spread out and his weight is off. He could take him on down the left, but he needs to get the ball forward to keep edge in speed. He could lay it off into space for Benteke. This is a safe play, but Benteke will likely be pressed by Gary Cahill behind him and forced to drop the ball back.

It’s not shown on the GIF, but Agbonlahor tricks Ivanovic, shuffling the ball between his feet quickly and gets it out in front down the left, ahead of the defender. This is where Gary Cahill makes a mistake as well, as he doesn’t commit to either Agbonlahor or Benteke, and is left in no-man’s land for the rest of the play.

This screen comes two touches after the previous shot. Agbonlahor now needs to make another decision. He can take on Cahill who is a few yards away from him, cross the ball to the back post and hope someone gets there, or look for his top-notch striker who remarkably has no one around him. This is where I criticize Cahill’s decision. Agbonlahor’s goal scoring ability from that position is slim to none. Ivanovic can catch up with him when he slows down. Cahill should have stayed back, and stayed on his feet, covering Benteke.

By now, this goal is all but scored. As we can see, Cahill left his feet and Agbonlahor tidily delivered the pass. He not only showed skill during this play, but fantastic awareness of where his players were on the pitch. The pass reaches Benteke on his back foot, but without anyone truly close to cover him, he has time to settle to his left, wind up, shoot, and put this one pass Petr Cech for the equalizer.

If you watch the GIF again, you can see that Benteke’s goal is scored near post, something Cech won’t be too happy about.

This goal shows a great job by Villa of testing Chelsea in all parts of their defense, and it shows in the wrong steps and mis-positioning of Cahill and Ivanovic throughout. You just can’t forget about a striker like that, or at least need to have a midfielder be more aware. Agbonlahor makes a great run down the side, and Villa were back in this game at the half.

Bransilav Ivanovic, 73rd Minute 2-1

Chelsea wins it on a set piece. If you track Ivanovic throughout this entire play, you see nothing but space in front of him, and a perfectly placed header in the corner of the net. Not much to analyze here, other than a poor marking job by Villa in the late stages of the match.

Ivanovic’s goal didn’t come without controversy, though. In the 73rd minute, he received a yellow for this elbow. Eerily similar to Stephen Taylor’s elbow from Monday night which earned a straight red.

Overall, this match played about to where it should have been. The first goals were deserved and brilliant moves of their own, but ultimately Villa didn’t have enough to hold off Chelsea.

MOTM: None. I can’t in good faith give it to Ivanovic for his elbow and defensive work on the goal, and no other midfielder contributed enough on the goals for me.