{"id":67660,"date":"2014-11-22T19:15:49","date_gmt":"2014-11-22T19:15:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=67660"},"modified":"2014-11-22T19:15:49","modified_gmt":"2014-11-22T19:15:49","slug":"chelsea-stretch-epl-lead-dominant-west-brom-win","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=67660","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea stretch EPL lead after dominant West Brom win"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea opened up a seven-point lead at the Premier League summit as goals from Diego Costa and Eden Hazard secured a one-sided win over 10-man West Brom.<\/p>\n

Costa’s chest down and volley got the ball rolling for Jose Mourinho’s side.<\/p>\n

Hazard was then gifted a cheap second after 25 minutes, firing home after West Brom switched off at a corner.<\/p>\n

Claudio Yacob’s two-footed lunge on Costa earned him a straight red card from Lee Mason, effectively ending the contest inside half an hour.<\/p>\n

West Brom were spared further pain but it was nevertheless a chastening loss for the visitors, who were second best by a considerable margin in all areas.<\/p>\n

Chelsea almost went ahead inside five minutes when Hazard’s low cross was turned goalwards by John Terry but Ben Foster got down to divert the ball away.<\/p>\n

West Brom’s plans for Costa looked clear early on when three defenders crowded him out in the area, but he escaped their attentions to devastating effect on 11 minutes.<\/p>\n

Oscar’s delivery from the left picked out the striker, who was given the benefit of a narrow offside call before controlling on his chest and firing his 11th goal of the season beyond the exposed Foster.<\/p>\n

Oscar nearly doubled the lead when his sliced drive brought a diving save from Foster, who did even better to deflect away the rebound from the onrushing Costa.<\/p>\n

Costa then guided Branislav Ivanovic’s inviting centre millimetres wide, as the contest, barely 20 minutes old, grew ever more one-sided.<\/p>\n

In what was the Blues’ first home game since Jose Mourinho\u00a0criticised the atmosphere at Stamford Bridge,\u00a0Chelsea’s performance was greeted enthusiastically by the fans.<\/p>\n

\n\n\n<\/colgroup>\n\n\n\n\n
Baggies’ unhappy hunting ground<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n
\n

Albion’s last league win at Chelsea was by 3-1 in September 1978, when Tony Brown became the club’s joint all-time top scorer with 208 goals.<\/p>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table>\n<\/div>\n

They had another goal to cheer on 25 minutes, the West Brom defence dozing at a corner and allowing Cesc Fabregas to deliver short and low to Hazard, who drifted away from Craig Gardner’s half-hearted challenge before firing an untidy deflected finish through Foster.<\/p>\n

Five minutes later, the writing was on the wall for Alan Irvine’s rattled visitors as Yacob, making his first league start of the season, was sent off for a wild tackle on Costa.<\/p>\n

West Brom made it to the break without further punishment but within moments of the restart were exposed again as Nemanja Matic volleyed over Oscar ‘s lofted ball.<\/p>\n

For all their dominance, Chelsea could not make any further inroads after break, but it was all a far cry from events in this same fixture a year ago, when\u00a0Albion were seconds away from inflicting Mourinho’s first ever league defeat at Stamford Bridge.<\/p>\n

West Brom boss Alan Irvine:\u00a0<\/strong>“We had a game plan that was made more difficult by the first goal, which I think was offside. But the second one I was disappointed about – we pride ourselves on being organised at set-pieces and we weren’t as organised as we should have been.”<\/p>\n

On Yacob’s dismissal: “I can see why he sent him off. I don’t think Claudio was trying to do any damage – he was trying to win the ball – but the rules are such that if your feet leave the ground with both feet you’re not in control.”<\/p>\n

\"Claudio<\/p>\n

Claudio Yacob was making his first league start of the season<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Ben<\/p>\n

Albion goalkeeper Ben Foster was busy throughout as Chelsea racked up 21 shots on goal<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Saido<\/p>\n

Saido Berahino, fresh from his England call-up, endured a frustrating afternoon for West Brom<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Eden<\/p>\n

Eden Hazard’s goal was his fourth in the league this season<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\"Alan<\/p>\n

West Brom have now won just three of their last 15 Premier League games, eight of those defeats<\/p>\n

–<\/p>\n

Source: BBC Sport<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelsea opened up a seven-point lead at the Premier League summit as goals from Diego Costa and Eden Hazard secured a one-sided win over 10-man West Brom. Costa’s chest down and volley got the ball rolling for Jose Mourinho’s side. Hazard was then gifted a cheap second after 25 minutes, firing home after West Brom […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":20,"featured_media":67665,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[29,3],"class_list":["post-67660","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-dr-mahamudu-bawumia","tag-ghana-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67660","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/20"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=67660"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67660\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/67665"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=67660"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=67660"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=67660"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}