Crystal Palace 1-2 Chelsea Highlights
Cesc Fabregas scored his first league goal for Chelsea as the league leaders survived a late Crystal Palace fightback to maintain a five-point advantage over Manchester City.
Chelsea shrugged off the absence of top scorer Diego Costa to open the scoring with a 25-yard free-kick from Oscar.
Cesar Azpilicueta and Palace defender Damien Delaney were dismissed before Fabregas finished a fine passing move.
Fraizer Campbell’s late goal provided a scare but Jose Mourinho’s men held on.
Watch English Premier League match, Crystal Palace Vs Chelsea highlights here.
Venue: Selhurst Park
Date: Saturday, 18 October, 2014
Kick off: 15:00 BST
Goal! Crystal Palace 0, Chelsea 2. Cesc Fàbregas (Chelsea) right footed shot from the centre of the box to the bottom left corner. Assisted by Oscar.
Highlights
Cesar Azpilicueta Crazy Tackle
Crystal Palace – Team News
Defender Scott Dann is ruled out with the knee injury he suffered at Hull.
Adrian Mariappa is expected to deputise despite pulling out of international duty with Jamaica because of unspecified injury concerns.
Chelsea – Team News
Diego Costa is among five fitness doubts for Chelsea, having played twice for Spain despite hamstring concerns.
Andre Schurrle has had flu, while Didier Drogba, Ramires and John Mikel Obi are nursing injuries.
Head-to-head
Crystal Palace’s 1-0 at Selhurst Park last season ended a 12-match winless run against Chelsea in the league dating back to 1990.
Crystal Palace
Palace lost back-to-back matches at the start of the season and are in danger of doing so again following defeat at Hull last time out.
It is 218 minutes since the Eagles last conceded a goal at Selhurst Park, during a 3-1 defeat to West Ham in their opening home match of the campaign.
They have scored five of their 10 league goals from set-pieces, the joint-most in the Premier League.
The Eagles are five points better off than at this stage of last season, when they had lost six of their opening seven matches,
Chelsea
Only the Chelsea team of 2005-06, who won all of their opening seven matches, have accrued more points than the current Blues side at this stage of a Premier League season.
They have scored 21 goals so far at an average of three per game.
Chelsea are unbeaten in 14 of their last 15 league London derbies, with their only loss coming at Palace last season.
The Blues are the only Premier League team to have twice come from behind to win this season.
Jose Mourinho won both of his previous Premier League clashes against Neil Warnock, beating Sheffield United both home and away during 2006-2007.
Diego Costa has scored nine goals in his first seven Premier League matches. He needs one goal against Palace to equal Micky Quinn’s all-time record of 10 goals in his first eight appearances. Costa scored 10 goals after eight matches for Atletico Madrid in La Liga last season. Costa has already scored more Premier League goals than any Palace player since their return to the top flight at the start of last season.
