Aston Villa heaped more misery on Chelsea and Mauricio Pochettino by claiming a second successive win at Stamford Bridge.
Ollie Watkins’ second half winner made it another day to forget for Chelsea who failed to win and score for the third match running and ended the game with 10 mens
Villa eventually capitalised on Chelsea’s Malo Gusto seeing red in debatable fashion when Watkins scored the winner with 17 minutes left.
And, to add to Chelsea’s frustration, striker Nicolas Jackson was shown a fifth yellow card of the season despite a pep talk with Pochettino on Friday about collecting needless cautions and he too will now serve a ban.
The boos that rang out at full-time were inevitable. It is now just one league win from six games from Chelsea this season as their depressing form continued.
They have won just three times in the league at Stamford Bridge in 2023 and twice in their last 18 games home and away.
For Villa, this was another impressive result as they got back to winning ways following their midweek Europa Conference League defeat in
Europe.
The first attempt of a first half full of nearly moments came from the fit-again Moises Caicedo who fired straight at Emiliano Martinez from outside the box.
Villa then threatened for the first time through Lucas Digne, whose volley was met in equally spectacular fashion by Chelsea goalkeeper Robert Sanchez and his acrobatic save to tip the flying ball over the bar.
After finding the net in eye-catching fashion in midweek, Villa’s French leftback seemingly had a taste for goals.
Chelsea’s best chance came midway through the half
Mykhailo Mudryk, having a mixed first 45 minutes, produced his standout moment with a reverse pass through the eye of the needle to pick out Jackson.
He could not produce the finish the pass deserved though with Martinez sticking out a hand to divert the Chelsea striker’s shot behind.
The trading of chance continued for the remainder of the opening period.
Sanchez held a deflected shot from Matty Cash and Enzo Fernandez turned Gusto’s cutback over before Sanchez shone again.
Nicolas Zaniolo thought he was about to cap a quietly impressive performance with the opening goal when he met a header back across goal firmly on the volley.
Sanchez, again, had other ideas, and producing another reflex save to help the ball over the bar.
Just before half-time Mudryk flashed a dangerous ball across goal but Chelsea had nobody there waiting for what would have been a tap-in, perhaps an indication of why they have found goals hard to come by.
They thought they had one just before the break only to see Axel Disasi’s header chalked off for offside.
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