Maurizio Sarri rang the changes to great effect, as Gonzalo Higuain opened his Chelsea account in a 5-0 win against lowly Huddersfield.
Still hurting from their shameful performance, as Antonio Rudiger put it, in midweek, the Blues made a host of changes which included the aforementioned German dropping out in favour of Andreas Christensen, as well as starts for Willian, Ross Barkley and Marcos Alonso.
A bright start was seemingly leading to nothing until midway through the first-half Higuain collected N’Golo Kante’s superb through ball before striking past Jonas Lossl for his first goal in a Chelsea shirt. Eden Hazard’s penalty on the stroke of half-time meant Chelsea were cruising, and they added to their advantage in emphatic style after the break.
Hazard was first to do so, rounding Lossl and finishing into an empty net, after being played through by Barkley. Under fire forward Higuain banished his worst critics with just over 20 minutes to play, curling a sumptuous 30 yard shot into the top corner to extend Chelsea’s lead to four goals. Late on David Luiz, whom himself endured a lot of criticism following his performance against Bournemouth, headed in from Willian’s cross to give Sarri his biggest margin of victory this season and place pressure on Arsenal to secure a result against Manchester City tomorrow.
