C Palace 0-1 Chelsea

C Palace 0-1 Chelsea

Away team scorers
Diego Costa 43

There is simply no stopping Chelsea. Antonio Conte’s side equalled a club record by prevailing here, muscling their way to an 11th league win in succession to establish, overnight at least, a nine-point advantage and leave the chasing pack struggling to spy them at the summit. They have proved they can dazzle on this run. This demanded more brawn, but the outcome was still the same. They have an air of invincibility at present.

Alan Pardew, head bowed as he trudged down the touchline at the final whistle with the scrutiny on his own position increasing with each defeat, will take no pleasure in being proved right. The Crystal Palace manager had suggested Conte’s team are looking “unbeatable” on the eve of this fixture and, for all his own side’s ferocious commitment, they could not prise them apart. Palace are cowering near the foot of this division, a team praying for the opening of the transfer window. Chelsea’s only regret from this latest victory were the suspensions picked up to key players, though his squad has the depth to cope.

Conte had feared fatigue might blunt his side’s progress, his squad having only returned to Cobham at 4am on Thursday morning after the midweek success at Sunderland, and there was a stodginess to their approach for long periods. N’Golo Kanté was not quite as spritely as normal, with the team’s forward-thinking players heaving to find rhythm. Costa’s frustration eventually saw him barge into Joe Ledley to prompt a fifth booking of term after 11 cardless appearances, and presumably grant Michy Batshuayi his chance against Bournemouth on Boxing Day. They laboured to assert much control, and might even have trailed had Palace boasted more conviction in their own forays forward, yet they still retired at the interval ahead with the established order apparently reimposed.

There was a simplicity to the opening goal which rather damned the home side’s attempt at defence. Eden Hazard had reclaimed possession and retreated into midfield before urging Cesar Azpilicueta up from centre-half duties on the opposite flank. The Spaniard ambled forward untracked and lofted a centre towards the far post where Costa, eking space from Scott Dann and Martin Kelly, was permitted a free header over Wayne Hennessey to register his 50th goal for the club, and a sixth in eight games. The goalkeeper was poorly positioned, caught between a desire to intercept the cross or defend his line. The concession felt soft.

It was also all too familiar. Palace had shipped to Manchester United just before the interval on Wednesday – albeit controversially – and the suggestion their concentration tends to crack late on is fuelled by similar late breaches against Liverpool and Manchester City here this term. The prospect of chasing the contest rather dampened any sense of encouragement gleaned from Martin Kelly’s rampaging runs down the right, with Jason Puncheon and James McArthur both spurning sights of goal from the full-back’s delivery.

There was the inevitable urgent response after the break, just as there had been against United, and Chelsea were stretched defensively at times by the energy of Wilfried Zaha and Puncheon on opposite flanks. It was a reflection of their nuisance value that Kanté also earned a fifth caution of the campaign for clattering Puncheon on the flank. Yet, increasingly, the more coherent threat was posed by the leaders on the counter-attack.

Both Marcos Alonso and the substitute Cesc Fàbregas threatened to force them further ahead, while Hennessey did well to turn aside Kanté’s skimmed attempt from Victor Moses’ pull-back.

They would go closer still before the end, Alonso belting a free-kick on to the underside of the crossbar with Palace increasingly prone, but it mattered not. The celebrations at the end were all Chelsea’s, conviction swelling with each win that the title can be theirs.

Guardian