Chelsea 2 - Aston Villa 0: Diego Costa helps ease pressure on Jose Mourinho

Diego Costa celebrates opening the scoring for Chelsea

IT wasn't quite the new dawn Jose Mourinho promised - but it's a start.

 

Diego Costa  - yes, that man again - helped Chelsea on the long road back up to the top four spot their Special One believes they will get with a goal and an assist that put sorry Villa to the sword.

You might not always like the guy, but he definitely makes a difference. And he did that yesterday alright.

No wonder Mourinho likes him so much. Costa was a thorn in Villa's side all afternoon and put a smile back on his boss's face again in the process.

How the beleaguered Tim Sherwood would love someone like him on his side right now.

 

Villa's likeable manager has a mountain to climb to safety if this is anything to go by. And if his bosses give him the opportunity, that is.

Mourinho is probably spot on in assuming his job is safe whatever happens. Sherwood definitely can not say the same in these troubled times at Villa Park.

Mind you, it really was more like the gladiators being thrown to the lions to start with.

The perilous positions Mourinho and Sherwood find themselves in at the moment meant a battery of cameras and piercing eyes were there to greet them.

Hardly surprising either really, particularly for Mourinho, given that he left Eden Hazard, Oscar and Nemanja Matic on the bench.

And when Villa fans taunted the Chelsea boss with chants of "you're not special anymore" you couldn't blame the bloke for being a bit more animated than usual.

His worries eased a bit just past the half hour, though, when Diego Costa put Chelsea in front - courtesy of a combined blunder by Brad Guzan and Joleon Lescott.

The keeper's clearance was bad enough, but Lescott should have been able to deal with it instead of being so easily brushed aside by Willian.

Chelsea's Brazilian didn't need to be told twice what to do then and his final ball found Costa in front of a gaping goal.

Costa won't get  too many easier goals this season.

To be fair, Chelsea barely deserved that. Villa's Rudy Gestede had home hearts in their mouths on a couple of earlier occasions and he and his teammates probably had good reason to feel a bit aggrieved at going in at half time a goal down.

Mourinho will have had reservations about debutant defender, Baba Rahman, in that first half as well.

The Ghanan hardly looked worth the £14million he cost from  FC Augsburg, even after his boss found the  need to have a fatherly word or two with him on the touchline.

Still, it was young Ruben Loftus-Cheek Mourinho chose to replace - with Matic - for the second half.

But it was that man Costa again who really eased the champions' nerves - even though  Chelsea's second on 54 minutes was credited as an own goal by Alan Hutton.

Cesc Fabregas's superb defence-splitting ball to Costa was the best thing Chelsea had done  all afternoon up to then and the way the controversial striker brought it down certainly deserved a goal.

But poor Hutton got his leg in the way of the final shot and this time  Guzan was blameless as the ball was deflected past him.

You have to give credit to the Chelsea faithful after that, though. And those in The Shed end in particular.

There was no way they were going to let their side lose this one and the rousing chorus of support they mounted for a full five minutes or so was inspirational indeed.

Mr Mourinho looked well pleased for once. Mr Sherwood didn't.

Tempers frayed a bit in the technical area for a while, but it was all handbags stuff - especially after Ray Wilkins, back at The Bridge with Villa this time, played peacemaker.

How long he and Sherwood will stay around to continue doing that is anyone's guess.

Chelsea: Begovic 7; Azpilicueta 6, Zouma 6, Terry 6, Baba 5; Ramires 6, Fabregas 7; Willian 7 (Remy 90), Loftus-Cheek 5 (Matic 45) 6, Pedro 5 (Hazard 83); Costa 7.

Aston Villa: Guzan 6; Hutton 6, Richards 6, Lescott 5, Richardson 5 (Amavi 64) 5; Gill 5, Westwood 5, Gueye 5, Ayew 5 (Traore 68) 5; Grealish 6; Gestede 6.

Star Man: Diego Costa.

Referee: Roger East.