Chelsea’s weekend away encounter vs Norwich practically started with the Blues’ one goal advantage as Oscar controlled an assist from Demba Ba. The young midfielder put the ball in the bottom right corner giving Ruddy no chance of keeping the scoreboard at 0-0 after only 4mins. However once Norwich equalised it looked like Chelsea would miss out on the win yet again. Clearly the “Special One” had different ideas as both of his subs – Hazard (who came on for the last 15mins) and Willan (who came on for the last 10mins) scored within a minute of each other in the 85th and 86th minutes respectively bringing the long awaited League away win for Chelsea.
The match was played in one direction from the early goal onwards. Chelsea had some great opportunities through Demba Ba who showed excellent form but did not manage to score. Luiz also contributed a lot more to the Blues’ attacks managing a few good runs that almost ended with a goal. Schurrle seemed a bit more relaxed than against Steaua and ruled his side of the field. Mata and Lampard were very present throughout the first 35 minutes but faded away a bit towards the end of the first half. Norwich started putting some pressure on the Blues with 10 minutes left until half time. Leroy Fer and Snodgrass had some decent opportunities but nothing got past Cech.
The second half began with Chelsea on the attacking side. Demba Ba, Schurrle and Oscar were blocked repeatedly. After fending off a few good chances from the Blues, Norwich started pushing forward. Pilkington missed the target after being given a free kick just outside the box. Lampard and Ramires replied but no goal was conceded.
Norwich who by now were actually looking the better side managed to equalize through Plikington’s header on 68mins. The assist came from one of the most active people on the pitch, Ricky van Wolfswinkel. Both managers started making their moves after the goal. Eto’o replaced Demba Ba and Hooper replaced van Wolfswinkel. Hazard came on 75 minutes into the game in order to replace Ashley Cole who suffered an injury. Both of Chelsea’s substitutes had chances to score straight away but failed. With 10 minutes to go Willian replaced Mata.
With all 3 changes made the 85th and the 86th minutes determined the final result as Hazard and Willian scored thus bringing fans the joy of their first away win of the season.
Overall the blues dominated the game and managed 22 shots out of which 8 were on target. The result was a fair reflection of the game’s stats. Even so luck was on Chelsea’s side as the match could have easily ended in a draw but as they say you make your own luck and Chelsea seem to be doing that through their excellent team spirit these days.