Chelsea beats Newcastle and ¿Higuain to Chelsea?

It was matchday 22 for Chelsea and they ran into a tough Newcastle United side, the clash ended with a 2-1 victory for the ‘Blues’ at Stamford Bridge. As usual this season, Sarri’s men were early to dominate possession, which really didn’t bothered Newcastle given their 5-4-1 formation that saw the Venezuelan striker Salomon Rondón pretty alone in the opposite area, almost as if he was playing another game, the plan was simple for the visitors: Resist as much as they could and try to hurt Chelsea in the counter attack. This plan fell through at the 9-minute mark when a magnificent ball from David Luiz found Pedro running towards the penalty spot where he was able to receive the pass and with a nice touch sent the ball over Dubravka right to the back of the net.

Image from: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/matches/match-day/2018/987805?pageTab=report


After the goal, the home side took control of the game and maybe relax a little too much, for the next 30 minutes everything seemed under control, but five minutes before the break the ‘Magpies’ equalized through a well-placed header by Ciaran Clark. Right after the visitors goal, Willian had a clear chance wasted when he missed the target being one-on-one against the goalkeeper, ending like this the first half with a draw in the score.

Chelsea had a good second half having again control of the ball, although it was one of the cloudiest performances in the season for Jorginho, the blue side took the lead again with an incredible strike from Willian in the 57th minute receiving the ball from Hazard who today played in the false nine role, after this. Newcastle did not threat too much the goal defended by Kepa and it took until the last play of the game where Christian Atsu sent a cross too high off his teammates.



Image from: https://www.chelseafc.com/en/matches/match-day/2018/987805?pageTab=report


With this win, Chelsea is in 4th position with 47 points with 6 points clear from Arsenal that stands 5th with 41 points after losing today against West Ham. Last but not least, Chelsea were given a boost in their pursuit of Gonzalo Higuain after AC Milan’s coach, Gennaro Gattuso, said after his side match today, that “when a player makes certain choices, it becomes difficult to convince him otherwise”. It is understood from days ago that Gonzalo’s brother/agent was in London to complete the Argentinian striker move to Stamford Bridge.

Image from: http://www.atuttomilan.it/la-gazzetta-dello-sport-chelsea-allo-scoperto-telefonata-per-higuain/