Hazard reached 14 Premier League goals in a season for the third time in his Chelsea career as the Blues prevailed 3-1 on the south coast.
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Tottenham won their match 4-0 and cut the gap between them and Chelsea to four points, but Conte was not all that anxious about the pressure coming from second placed Tottenham.
Manchester City’s Fabian Delph scores their third goal.
“You have teams that you know before the game that you can score, or that it’s your team”, said Hazard. Every team will want to beat us’.
Steve Agnew’s men retain a game in hand on the teams immediately above them, but with matches against Arsenal, Manchester City, Chelsea and Liverpool still to come time is quickly running out. “I scored two goals against them here last season”.
Nigerian winger Victor Moses returned to Chelsea’s starting lineup to help the North London side defeat Bournemouth 3-1 at the Vitality Stadium.
Jose Mourinho says the demands on young players is too great.
Bournemouth pulled one back just before half-time when Josh King curled home a superb effort in the 42nd minute but Chelsea restored their two-goal cushion midway through the second half when Marcos Alonso found the top corner with a stunning free-kick.
A rampant Tottenham Hotspur may continue to dream of a title challenge but, for an extremely resolute Chelsea, that is little more than a mirage.
Pressured by Tottenham’s earlier thrashing of Watford, the visitors from Stamford Bridge looked to be cruising after two goals in three first-half minutes. A good coach also tries to find the right way to work with them, in tactical aspects and physical aspects, to show them the situations [in which] they can improve.
Chelsea face the next test of their credentials at Manchester United next Sunday.
Chelsea star Eden Hazard holds off Adam Smith and Harry Arter of Bournemouth. Like the whole team. “We knew the result of Tottenham before the game, so the only thing [they could do] to stay at seven points was to win.
When we conceded the goal we lost a bit of confidence but we managed the game and deserved to win”. It is frustrating not go get a clean sheet but we defended poorly at set-pieces.
While the first was scruffy, the second goal was anything but.
The presence of Nemanja Matic in midfield rather than Cesc Fabregas looked to have lessened the creativity of Chelsea, but the benched Spain global would have been proud of the passes from David Luiz and Kante that set up the quick-fire brace of first-half goals that pushed Chelsea into a commanding, though fragile, early lead.
FW Diego Costa, 6 – Had a ridiculously fortunate assist for Smith’s own goal, which gave Chelsea the lead and summed up another frustrating performance from the player. I suppose that’s the nature of the football media beast.
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“I was pretty concerned about Bournemouth a couple of months ago when it seemed they may be sucked into a relegation battle”.
