Chelsea take another 3 points home in the Premier League after beating London rivals Fulham in a 2-0 victory at Stamford Bridge.
Enzo Fernandez sealed the win for the Blues with his penalty. But it was Joao Pedro who was vital in giving us the win we needed heading into the international break.
Last season, today’s game would’ve ended a lot differently.
We would’ve lost this sort of match before, and a big reason we saw that so often was because we had limited ways in which we were able to score.
But the signing of Joao Pedro has changed that completely for us so far this season. His threat in the box has been golden for us, as we not only saw in this game but against West Ham as well.
We saw it in the Club World Cup at times, not only is he dominant in the box attacking wise but defensively as well.
Against Fulham he was causing their defence havoc, and when Chelsea play like they did today, that threat in the box will prove to be extremely important.
The goal was very well-taken, the new corner tactic where we flick it on at the near post with a fast and pacy cross has given Pedro two goals now.
If we can get more joy from corners like we have at the start of the season, then more goals will come for Joao.
His overall performance felt like fitness was catching up to him slightly, but that was the story for a lot of our players today.
This start of the season we shouldn’t have expected spectacular performances from the team yet, the main focus has just been finding a way to accumulate points and get wins which is exactly what we’ve been doing and Pedro has been at the heart of that.
It’s the international break now, so a bit of a well deserved break for some players.
The returns of the likes of Cole Palmer, as well as new signings like Alejandro Garnacho will be a welcome addition to the side to take some of the load off players like Joao Pedro. Especially after the Liam Delap injury.
When the players return, we come back to a tough away game against Brentford where these different ways we’ve been finding to score will come in handy I’m sure.