After Saturday’s gritty win over Aston Villa, Jose Mourinho hailed the importance of the stability of the team and how well Ivanovic did to even play in the game. As the manager revealed the hard-nosed Serbian defender was suffering from an injured right foot all week in training and Mou joked that as Ivanovic could not kick the ball all week with his right foot it was perhaps the reason why he was so good when he fired home the winner with his left foot.

A year ago at Villa Park, Chelsea lost the corresponding fixture 1-0 to a Fabian Delph winner as Willian, Ramires and Mourinho were all sent off. Therefore, this season’s fixture could not have been more different as Chelsea managed to keep all their players on the pitch and avoided getting their manager banished to the stands as well.

It was the kind of match that you need to win if you have designs on lifting the Barclays Premier League title and Chelsea showed what they are made of as they dug in and got the away win against a resilient, decent looking Aston Villa outfit after being pegged back at 1-1 early in the 2nd half by Okore’s 48th minute equaliser for the Villans. The Blues had gone in at half time 1-0 up, courtesy of Eden Hazard’s 10th minute opener for Chelsea.

After Villa’s goal, the Blues could have gone into melt-down as they did a year ago but left back Azpilicueta broke forward into the area and perfectly set it up for the man-of-the-moment Branislav Ivanovic who cracked home the 66th minute winner with his awesome left-footed strike which gave Brad Guzan in the Aston Villa goal no chance and sent Chelsea 7 points clear of Man City. The Citizens could only draw 1-1 with Hull City at the Etihad thanks to a 92nd minute equaliser from James Milner.

Interestingly it is the fifth time Ivanovic has scored against Villa so he obviously likes playing the midlanders – something to remember for next season’s matches assuming Villa can avoid relegation again this year which they should based on their performance levels but they may not if their results do not start improving. As for Chelsea the beat goes on and new boy Juan Cuadrado also got on for his debut replacing Willian for the last 10 minutes looking lively and threatening.

You can listen to some of the boss’s post match interview below where he talks about the warrior that is Branislav Ivanovic …