Chelsea dominate Swansea City in all aspects but the final score

Chelsea dominated the entire 90 minutes of Wednesday’s Premier League encounter at Stamford Bridge, but were only able to turn that advantage into a narrow 1-0 win over relegation candidates Swansea City. A second-half effort by centre back Antonio Rüdiger, his first ever Premier League goal, proved the be the only difference on the scoresheet as Chelsea kept pace with the rest of the top five.

The busy fixture list prompted Antonio Conte into making a few changes to the usual lineup, including a switch back to the 3-4-3, rest for Eden Hazard, and a return for Cesc Fàbregas. But the most shocking change of all was César Azpilicueta on the bench for a Premier League match for the first time in almost two years. Azpilicueta had played every single minute of every single Premier League game for Conte, plus a few more — 74 straight starts in fact — but he was only on the bench with eventual goalscorer Rüdiger deputizing at right centre back.

Swansea were unchanged from their 0-0 draw over the weekend, packing the midfield and the defense with centre backs and centre midfielders — Ki Sung-Yueng, Roque Mesa and Tom Carroll behind 20-year-old Renato Sanches some dude who’s never played football in his life — in an attempt to keep Chelsea out. This largely involved sitting deep and rarely moving past the halfway line. Having scored only 7 goals in 13 matches — one goal less than Morata alone — and with Tammy Abraham, who has 4 of those goals, ineligible, Swansea had an obvious goal and plan to achieve it. Wilfried Bony’s thankless task of chasing down a few long balls was only made more fruitless by an absolute lack of support or quality behind him.

With Swansea deep, narrow and missing most of their passes forward whenever not just turning the ball over, Chelsea were given space to settle into the game and start a game-long siege of Lukasz Fabianski's goal. The absence of Hazard shifted the creative burden wholly onto Fàbregas, although Willian was also incisive with some of his forays forward, and both wing-backs had the freedom of either wing to do whatever they pleased.