And two-goal man Pedro, though he had a couple dicey moments as well, including another horrendous midfield giveaway.
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Guus Hiddink continues his search for a first home Premier League victory since returning to Chelsea when the Londoners come up against relegation battlers Newcastle United in Saturday’s late kick-off.
Chelsea’s fall from Premier League title winners to the bottom half of the table has been remarkable and led to Hiddink being appointed as interim boss when Jose Mourinho was sacked in December.
Poor defending could be attributed to all five of the Blues’ goals, three of which arrived in the opening 17 minutes through Diego Costa, Pedro and Willian.
Hiddink will await the results but hinted the 35-year-old would not be risked with such a short turnaround before the last-16 first leg at Parc des Princes. “But we have to go there and play with the confidence we showed today”, he said.
After an intense game, two days for teams having to compete in Europe is not enough.
Willian turned Cheick Tiote near the centre circle, and proceeded to stride through the opposition half with yards of space around him.
STEVE McCLAREN has defended the decision to take his Newcastle United players to a training camp in La Manga in the wake of their five-goal capitulation at Chelsea.
Newcastle, by contrast, look as bad as they did at the start of the season.
“There I was challenging and talking with the players, on an individual basis with a lot of them”.
From Newcastle’s own corner, the ball was booted up to Steven Taylor on the halfway line.
Costa returned the favour for Willian, playing a nice pass across goal for the Brazilian to easily finish. The pair exchanged words soon afterward and Terry was replaced by Baba Rahman.
The European game especially against PSG will be much more hard, because it’s a team unbeaten since August.
Then Newcastle left-back Rolando Aarons played a casual pass on halfway, allowing Pedro the chance to run to the edge of the box before firing home. “The way the first goal was scored was typical of a striker in good shape”.
Traore who came on for Costa in the 60th minute made history for himself when he became the first player from Burkina Faso to score in the Premier League.
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That will mean Newcastle goalkeeper Rob Elliot will have to be at his best to hold the fiery forward at bay, although the shot stopper’s clean sheet against West Brom last Saturday was the club’s first shut-out in nine league games.
