Nobody ever said this season was going to be straight-forward for Newcastle United.
From September 1 onwards, the majority of supporters could see that the current crop of players at the club will do well to stave off the threat of relegation and manage a respectable finish in the Premier League.
And that is exactly what Rafa Benitez is trying to achieve with a squad that has limitations and some players sampling the Premier League for the first time.
At Chelsea, United emerged with the very outcome many had expected from the game.
They picked up nothing in terms of points but at least they gave it a go and managed to ruffle a few feathers before succumbing to a team worth around £300million.
Newcastle may have started the game with a five-man defence but they still looked to create some openings and Dwight Gayle’s strike in the first half meant that Chelsea had to earn their three points.
Even when you turn up at Chelsea with a team worth £72million, you are still banking on catching the Blues on an off-day and needing to put in one of the best performances of the season.
On Saturday afternoon, neither of those factors came into play and in truth Chelsea managed to get the job done knowing they could still have cranked up a couple of gears.
The Blues don’t really need favours like they got at Stamford Bridge but they’ll take them gratefully if it means they can conserve their energy for Champions League games like their next clash against Atletico Madrid this week.
Florian Lejeune offered the first early festive gift of the day when allowing Eden Hazard to fire home comfortably to level the game up, before Matt Ritchie’s gift-wrapped header fell kindly for Victor Moses who crossed for Álvaro Morata to nudge them ahead.
Combined with Ritchie’s needless lunge on Moses for a second-half penalty to seal the game, Chelsea managed to win it with a degree of imperfection in terms of how the goals came about and many teams will leave here after being outplayed.
Newcastle weren’t exactly outclassed against the Blues - they were simply unable to find a way of coping with the way Chelsea came back at them after going ahead.
Rather than absorbing the pressure, they panicked and made individual errors.
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