Half-time: Chelsea 2 Tottenham 0

A quickfire double from Eden Hazard and Didier Drogba put Chelsea in command at the break at Stamford Bridge.

Tottenham were by far the brighter of the two sides in the first 15 minutes, with Harry Kane – starting ahead of Roberto Soldado – twice serving notice of his intent.

Shortly after Jan Vertonghen had nodded just over, Kane latched on to a Vlad Chiriches cross but his header came crashing back off the crossbar.

Kane then picked the pocket of Cahill on the left flank, outsprinted the Chelsea centre-back and bore down on goal, but screwed his angled shot wastefully wide of the far post.

It took Chelsea 17 minutes to muster a meaningful attack. John Terry won the ball on halfway, Willian slipped the ball into Drogba and he teed up Cesc Fabregas – but the Spaniard’s clipped effort was straight at Spurs keeper Hugo Lloris.

Tottenham didn’t heed the warning and Chelsea went in front a couple of minutes later.

Hazard, who had been the Blues’ main outlet early on, played a neat one-two with Drogba before smashing in a shot under the body of Lloris at his near post.

And another error from the goalkeeper allowed Chelsea to double their money moments later.

The Frenchman’s wayward kick was recovered by Hazard, he fed Oscar, and the Brazilian slipped a perfectly weighted pass into Drogba, who held off Vertonghen before drilling home.

The two goals settled Chelsea down after a nervy start and killed Tottenham’s early bluster, with Ryan Mason’s shot straight at Thibaut Courtois all Spurs had to show for the rest of the half.

Chelsea: Courtois; Ivanovic, Cahill, Terry, Azpilicueta; Matic, Fabregas; Willian, Oscar, Hazard; Drogba.
Subs: Cech, Zouma, Filipe Luis, Mikel, Schurrle, Salah, Remy.

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