It was a reasonably excessive tempo but finally fairly low high quality first half at Selhurst Park, with only a few probabilities at both finish, however with Chelsea taking a 1-0 lead into the break because of a person effort from Estêvão, who seized upon an errant backpass to run at aim from the midway line, maintain off a defender, and beat the goalkeeper with a properly timed shot.
The teen virtually repeated the trick just some minutes later, countering off a Palace nook, however this time, from a tighter angle, he put his shot vast of goal.
Previous to that, Palace wasted a pair probabilities, one because of a superb save by Robert Sánchez, whereas Enzo Fernández additionally hammered a shot on the flip over the bar. However in any other case it was largely a recreation of Chelsea possession in opposition to Palace stress, with loads of errant passes from each groups, and never a lot to speak about aside from possibly a harsh yellow card for Moisés Caicedo.
Chelsea started the second half with nice verve and a bit extra high quality, and João Pedro made that rely to double our lead inside just some minutes of the restart.
Like Estêvão, JP then had an opportunity quickly after to attain a second, however failed to search out the empty web. JP claimed that his shot was blocked by a hand, and although the referee disagreed initially, VAR flagged for assessment and the penalty can be finally given. Enzo made no mistake.
There have been nonetheless almost half-hour left at that time, however the recreation was successfully over already. Adam Wharton would get despatched off on 72 minutes for 2 yellow playing cards in fast succession simply to compound Palace’s distress.
Chelsea relaxed a bit an excessive amount of at that time and Palace acquired a comfort to destroy the clear sheet, however fortunately nothing extra got here of that regardless of the 9 (9!) minutes of added-on time.
