Guus Hiddink's first Premier League match back in charge of Chelsea ended in a 2-2 draw against Watford after Oscar missed a penalty in the 80th minute at Stamford Bridge on Saturday.
With the score level, Eden Hazard was tripped by Valon Behrami. Oscar stepped up, and slipped in his run-up before blazing over.
Diego Costa gave Chelsea the lead with a volley after John Terry won a header from Willian's corner in the 33rd minute.
Troy Deeney leveled with a penalty three minutes before halftime, sending Thibaut Courtois the wrong way after Nemanja Matic's handball.
While Chelsea remains two points above the relegation zone - and 13 points from fourth place - Watford is only behind United on goal difference in seventh place.
Chelsea are heading into a clash with another team in turmoil - Manchester United - who lost 2-0 at Stoke and put manager Louis Van Gaal's job under further scrutiny.
Leicester remained on top despite Christian Benteke giving Liverpool a 1-0 victory over the surprise front-runners.
Substitute Christian Benteke struck in the 64th minute against the league leaders at Anfield, steering home a pass across goal by Roberto Firmino with a controlled finish.
Liverpool dominated the first half, with Philippe Coutinho and Divock Origi going closest for Juergen Klopp's team.
But striker Origi hobbled off injured after a promising 35 minutes, appearing to point to his hamstring. Benteke replaced him in Liverpool's attack.
N'Golo Kante almost scored for Leicester by turning a cross from Christian Fuchs toward goal, only for Simon Mignolet to make a good low save.
The defeat was Leicester's first since losing 5-2 to Arsenal on Sept. 26 - a side who can replace them atop the table if they beat Southampton later this morning.
Manchester City quickly recovered from losing at Arsenal on Monday to thump struggling Sunderland 4-1 to stay third.
City scored three goals in 11 minutes against Sunderland to decide the outcome of the Premier League match in the first half, but substitute Vincent Kompany's return from injury lasted even less time.
LONDON — Guus Hiddink was unable to inspire Chelsea to victory in his first Premier League match back in charge at Stamford Bridge, with Oscar missing a late penalty in the 2-2 draw with Watford on Saturday (Sunday Manila time).
With both sides hunting all three points, Chelsea’s Eden Hazard was tripped by Valon Behrami after a marauding run into the penalty area in the 80th minute.
Oscar stepped up but slipped in his run-up and blazed high over the crossbar.
“We wanted to win today,” Chelsea midfielder Nemanja Matic told Sky Sports. “It’s not a good result for us, we are sad, we wanted three points. Oscar has to keep his head up because these things can happen. I’m sure he will score the next one.”
Chelsea is 15th in the Premier League standings after the draw, while Watford is seventh but moves level on 29 points with Manchester United, which occupies sixth on superior goal difference.
Diego Costa scored both of Chelsea’s goals but picked up his fifth yellow card of the season for a foul in the 88th and will be suspended for his side’s next match, against Man United, on Monday.
“Diego Costa showed his best today,” said Hiddink, who was interim manager of Chelsea in 2009. “It is a pity.”
Costa put Chelsea ahead in the 32nd minute, with an instinctive volley after John Terry won a header from Willian’s corner.
But three minutes before halftime, Watford captain Troy Deeney hauled his side level with a penalty, sending Chelsea goalkeeper Thibaut Courtois the wrong way after Matic was penalized for handball.
Watford, heading into the match with four straight wins, was galvanized by the equalizer and soon forced itself into the lead.
Odion Ighalo was allowed to turn and run at goal by Gary Cahill in the 56th minute, and his left-footed shot deflected off the defender and looped beyond Courtois.
But Chelsea kept pushing to get back into the game, and Watford’s lead was short-lived.
Costa notched his second with a composed finish that conjured memories of the striker in action for Chelsea last season, when his 20 goals propelled the club to the league title.
There were claims of offside from the Watford defense as he ran through to reach an ambitious pass by Willian, before taking one touch to control before lashing across Heurelho Gomes and into the far corner.
Both sides were unhappy to settle for a point, but the best chance either had for victory was Oscar’s spot kick.
“It was tough to play against Chelsea but I’m very happy with the point,” Watford manager Quique Sanchez Flores said. “I think the team has enough confidence for the future, it’s amazing for the story of Watford.”
The 27-year-old was the catalyst in Brazil's first win in World Cup qualifying and has strengthened his case to become the midfield figurehead for Jose Mourinho.
Brazil and Dunga were on the ropes. They’d failed once again. After a fine opening 40 minutes to their World Cup qualifying opener against Chile last week, a tactical switch from Jorge Sampaoli blunted the Selecao’s thrust down the flanks. And with no centre forward to add a finish touch to all Douglas Costa and Willian’s early wing-play, Chile regained control and ran out 2-0 winners in Santiago.
The five-time world champions, without their captain and talisman Neymar, looked every bit the team that had crashed out of the Copa America at the hands of Paraguay.
While Brazil have marched to 12 consecutive friendly victories since World Cup 2014, Dunga’s side have been wildly inconsistent in their competitive matches since that 7-1 shellacking from which the they are still reeling.
On Tuesday night against Venezuela, Brazil had to win. Dunga needed a saviour. It took just 40 seconds for one to step forward. And it came as no surprise that it would be old Mr reliable: Willian.
Venezuela goalkeeper Alain Baroja should have stopped his fierce drive, but the goal was a fitting reward for the thrust Willian provides a coach so obsessed with counter-attacking at pace.
The Chelsea midfielder has started every match under Dunga, aside from March’s victory over Chile when a number of first-team regulars were rested. He was probably Brazil’s best player against Chile; he’s arguably been their best player since the World Cup.
With Neymar suspended, Douglas Costa was tipped by the Brazilian media to be Dunga’s ‘showman’ this month. But the Bayern Munich man has been upstaged.
Having earned his place in the side for his indefatigable running and willing to track back and close down, Willian has grown in stature over recent months, taking more responsibility in possession.
Ten minutes after his opener, the 27-year-old drifted inside to assist a central midfield that, by design, sorely lacks any semblance of creativity. He played a quick one-two, strolled on and rolled a wonderful, defence-splitting pass to set Filipe Luis free down the left – his square should have been converted by Ricardo Oliveria.
Three minutes before half-time, Willian pounced again to double the lead and allow Dunga to breathe a well overdue sigh of relief.
Oscar had repeatedly played poor final passes to break down a number of Willian-inspired counter-attacks against Chile, but this time he did his Chelsea colleague proud, expertly allowing Filipe Luis’ low cross to run through his legs for the onrushing Willian, who finished with power and precision.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho may not have sat up until 4am to watch a long overdue return to form for Brazil, but he will no doubt be aware of Willian’s impact. Having made their worst start to the season in 37 years, the Portuguese needs a saviour of his own.
And with the likes of Eden Hazard and Cesc Fabregas failing to reproduce anything like the form they showed last season, Mourinho could well find one should he let Willian off the leash and hand him a more responsibility in leading Chelsea’s misfiring attack.
Since recovering from a reportedly unwanted move to Anzhi in 2013, the former Shakhtar Donetsk man has established himself for club and country through grit, desire and a self-sacrifice in order to provide whatever his manager asks of him.
Now he’s proving a difference-maker – at a time when both Brazil and Chelsea could really do with one.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho said the struggling English champions will stick to their back-to-basics approach after a hard-fought 2-0 win over Aston Villa on Saturday in which Eden Hazard started on the bench.
He added that the Belgium winger, Chelsea's stand-out player in last season's title-winning team, was among the substitutes as part of a revamp to end his side's miserable run of form.
"I left out Hazard because we are conceding lots of goals, we need to defend better, we need our midfield players to be just in the central area of the pitch," Mourinho told reporters.
"When, for example, a central midfielder has to be worried about providing cover to one of the sides, it's like a blanket, you pull this side, you have your feet in the cold, you know?"
Hazard, the Premier League's player of the year last season, had previously started every league game for Chelsea this season but only came on as an 83rd minute substitute on Saturday.
By then, the game was effectively over, thanks to a first-half goal by Spain striker Diego Costa and a 53rd minute own-goal by Alan Hutton who deflected in a strike by Costa.
Mourinho, asked whether he would continue to leave Hazard on the sidelines, said he wanted to see the Belgium international emulate the kind of defensive work-rate shown by Chelsea's other wide-playing midfielders, Brazil's Willian and Pedro of Spain.
"...I continue that way or he comes in our direction and he tries to replicate the same work that Willian and Pedro did," Mourinho said, echoing his criticism of Hazard two seasons ago.
CONFIDENCE LEVELS
Despite the win, Chelsea remain in the bottom half of the table 10 points behind leaders Manchester City, who kept up their sparkling run of form with a 5-1 thrashing of Bournemouth.
Mourinho said his team remained far off their usual standards but showed some sorely needed discipline that might help restore confidence and eventually creativity.
"I have to make decisions to try to bring results back. And when results are back and we have better stability in our confidence levels, then we go back to what we are."
The win eases some of the pressure on Mourinho who needed a public vote of confidence from Chelsea owner Roman Abramovic after a 3-1 home defeat by Southampton in their previous match.
Abramovic was seen smiling in his private box at the end of Saturday's game.
But for Aston Villa coach Tim Sherwood, whose side have not won in the league since the opening weekend, the pressure remains intense amid media speculation his job is on the line.
"I've seen those reports. People have been reminding me a few times about them. But I have had no indication that the clock is ticking," he said.
"I am under no illusion that as a football manager you need to win matches. If you don't, then invariably you lose your job somewhere down the line."
Half an hour after Arsenal completed their 3-0 dismantling of Manchester United on Oct. 4, Liverpool announced the sacking of manager Brendan Rodgers. It was tempting to consider how different things might have been for Rodgers had Liverpool been able to sign Alexis Sanchez in the summer of 2014.
Sanchez, scorer of two goals that blew away United before the international break, might perhaps have been capable of replicating the relentlessness of Luis Suarez, cashed in for £75 million to Barcelona, who part-funded that deal by selling the Chilean to Arsenal for £35m in the same summer.
Speaking this August to the Liverpool Echo newspaper, Liverpool chairman Tom Werner discussed the difficulties of the transfer market. "Without mentioning any names, we were very focused on a player last year," he said. "We felt that we had an understanding, but his wife wanted to live in London."
It required little decoding to discover that the nameless player was Sanchez. Up in Liverpool, an increased magnetism of the capital has become a bugbear. Steven Gerrard's recent autobiography reveals the former captain's role as ersatz SMS transfer negotiator, as he sent targets text messages to persuade them to choose Anfield.
"It was a game of texting ping-pong that only had small differences each time," Gerrard writes, having detailed failed flirtations with Sanchez, Willian and Toni Kroos. "Occasionally a player would say that his wife or girlfriend preferred the idea of living in London, Madrid or Paris than Liverpool. I knew then that the deal was dead."
Such sentiments were echoed in Gary Neville's Telegraph column last month. Gerrard's former England colleague, in penning a rather apocalyptic vision of the slide of football in the North, noted, "The surge in economic influence [within the UK] towards London might now be reflected in football. Clubs in the south-east who can claim to be within an hour of London seem to be developing a massive advantage. They will certainly be more attractive to players."
In the eyes of two leading men, English football's ever-growing reliance on foreign talent has shifted the balance of Premier League power to London. Gerrard and Neville, both local lads who made the grade, grew up in an era where English players still dominated the landscape, but these days, 65 percent of Premier League players are foreign, and those with a choice of destination, such as Sanchez, are likely to be attracted to London life.
London is a cosmopolitan city that can cater for people from just about any country in the world, where even a world-class footballer can make himself inconspicuous, as opposed to the goldfish-bowl existences that Gerrard himself writes were problematic in his home city of Liverpool. Chelsea, Arsenal and Tottenham, peers of Liverpool, can offer a lifestyle of opportunity in a place where football is not the be all and end all.
Alexis Sanchez signed for Arsenal from Barcelona in 2014.
Now that talent scouting is a global rather than local business, London's status as a desirable location, and the growing concentration of economic power on England's capital in recent times, has pushed it ahead of traditional heartlands such as Merseyside, the North East and Yorkshire, with England's largest county now without a Premier League club. Only Manchester, containing two clubs of hefty financial might with a Cheshire stockbroker belt to its south, can meet the demands of players, WAGs and their families while blocking the talent drain to the "Big Smoke" and keeping the north's end up.
Helping City and United's cause is success on the field, and the promise of Champions League football, which Gerrard's book bemoans an inability to guarantee to those he sent texts to. High-grade competition, silverware and a setup perhaps more coherent than Gerrard was able to offer Sanchez at Anfield will continue to attract top players, as will paying high wages.
When Sanchez was being courted, Liverpool were a Champions League club, having finished second in the Premier League the previous season, and Rodgers might now regret his bosses not offering beyond the £130,000 a week that Arsenal are reported to pay Sanchez. Any London factor might well have been washed away by hard cash, but Liverpool clearly baulked at the cost of buying that off. Instead, Werner and Rodgers could use Sanchez's London leanings as a somewhat convenient excuse.
It is below the Premier League elite that London's growth has become more striking. Beyond traditional powers Arsenal, Chelsea and Tottenham, lesser London clubs are becoming upwardly mobile.
When it became clear that Yohan Cabaye was surplus to requirements at PSG in the summer, Crystal Palace, a club with two seasons of struggle in the Premier League behind them, were able to attract the midfielder who had been one of English football's best when at Newcastle. Though a close relationship with manager Alan Pardew, his boss at St James' Park, certainly helped, London played its part in Cabaye signing an admittedly lucrative contract.
Yohan Cabaye made a shock move to Crystal Palace from PSG in the summer.Similarly, when paying the type of transfer fee a French club aside from PSG cannot refuse,West Ham signed Dimitri Payet for around £11mfrom Marseille. It was a deal reflecting a shifting of the gears at the club. To accompany their move to the Olympic Stadium next summer from Upton Park, the Hammers willlaunch a new badge, bearing the legend "West Ham United London," itself born of a corporate rebranding but perhaps also serving as a graphic reminder to foreign talent of the club's setting in one of the world's great cities.
Watford, who Sanchez's Arsenal faced on Saturday evening, are a club lent Neville's "massive advantage" by being on the outer reaches of London in Hertfordshire, where footballers from Arsenal or Tottenham have called home for decades. A formerly provincial concern is now embracing the globalisation of football and using its geographical location to grow as a business.
Vicarage Road is a haven of united nations, where Englishman Troy Deeney captains players of 21 different nationalities in Spanish manager Quique Sanchez Flores' squad. "I speak five languages so it is easy for me at Watford," Swiss midfielder Valon Behrami told The Independent. "I can jump in every discussion. I speak Italian, German, French, English and Albanian."
The Pozzo family, which owns Watford, come from Udine, Italy, and have owned Udinese in Italy's Serie A since 1986, as well as Granada, who they have established as a Primera Liga club since buying it in 2009. Now promoted to the Premier League, Watford, acquired in 2012, has become top priority, with Gino Pozzo, son of patriarch Giampaolo, choosing London as his home as the family operation chases down the riches on offer in English football.
Sanchez is one of the Pozzo family's greatest successes. They signed him at Udinese as a 17-year-old for £1.7m in 2006 and sold him for £20m to Barca five years later. Saturday saw star and former employers reunited on the fringe of the city threatening to take over English football.
Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho has told Eden Hazard to improve his defensive workrate after dropping the playmaker for their 2-0 win at home to Aston Villa.
Hazard, the recipient of numerous player of the year awards last term as Chelsea won the title, began on the substitutes’ bench as Diego Costa scored one and forced an Alan Hutton own goal to ease the pressure on Mourinho and pile more on Villa boss Tim Sherwood.
“I left out Hazard because we are conceding lots of goals. We need to defend better,” Mourinho said. “When you don’t have the ball, quality means nothing.
“It was just a tactical decision, leaving super quality on the bench, but bringing tactical discipline and hoping that the team could be solid.
“Willian and Pedro did amazing defensive work and allowed the midfield players to be comfortable. Hazard will be left out until he makes the same defensive contribution as Willian and Pedro.
“I continue that way, or he comes in our direction and tries to replicate the same work that Willian and Pedro did.”
Mourinho addressed his whole squad prior to the match, which was the first since Chelsea lost at home to Southampton on October 3 and prompted the first managerial vote of confidence in Roman Abramovich’s 12-year ownership.
“I told the players that this is not the moment to think about themselves, to think about their personal situation, a moment to moan or to try to be selfish in the approach,” Mourinho said. “This is a moment for the team, and nothing else.”
Chelsea won 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening to register their first victory in four matches as striker Diego Costa returned from suspension to score the opening goal. But Hazard, who was voted the player of the year for 2014, was conspicuous by his absence from the starting XI.
London: Having left Eden Hazard on the bench during the English Premier League (EPL) clash against Aston Villa, Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho asserted that the Belgian winger will struggle for playing time unless he works harder on the pitch.
Chelsea won 2-0 win at Stamford Bridge on Saturday evening to register their first victory in four matches as striker Diego Costa returned from suspension to score the opening goal. But Hazard, who was voted the player of the year for 2014, was conspicuous by his absence from the starting XI.
Mourinho picked teenager Ruben Loftus-Cheek in his midfield but replaced him with Nemanja Matic at half-time.
The Chelsea manager said after the match that Hazard will have to work harder on helping out the defence if he wants to regain his spot.
"I left out Hazard because we were conceding lots of goals. We needed to defend better. We need our midfielders to be just as worried in the central area of the pitch, not worrying about compensation on the left or right," Mourinho was quoted as saying by Skysports.
"It was a tactical decision. Leaving super quality on the bench, but bringing tactical discipline and hoping the team could be solid," he added. "When you don't have the ball, quality means nothing and what means (thumps chest)... you have or you don't have."
"I wanted more solidity. He's fantastic with his vision and the decisions he makes on the pitch. But without the ball you cannot compare him, tactically, with the others."
Mourinho picked out wingers Pedro and Willian for special praise and urged Hazard to emulate their work rate. Willian troubled the Villa defence with his runs down the flank and had a hand in the opening goal as he essayed a clinical pass across the opponent penalty area which Costa converted with a simple tap in.
"Pedro and Willian did amazing work today and allowed the midfielders to be very comfortable and have Ramires and Fabregas controlling totally the centre of the pitch," the 52-year-old Portuguese said. "And I will continue that way until he (Hazard) comes in our direction and tries to emulate the same work that Willian and Pedro put in."
