Wales : Willian’s second goal of the season and Diego Costa’s sixth meant a happy return to winning ways on Humberside and importantly, a new-look defence kept a clean sheet.
Liverpool secured a fourth consecutive win in the Premier League by coming from a goal down to beat Swansea City 2-1 at the Liberty Stadium on Saturday afternoon.
For Chelsea, Antonio Conte reacted to the defeats against Liverpool and Arsenal by making changes, both in personnel and formation. In came Marcos Alonso and Victor Moses for their first league starts of the season, with Branislav Ivanovic and Cesc Fabregas moved to the bench, and out went the four-man defence.
Instead David Luiz played in the centre of a back three with Cesar Azpilicueta and Gary Cahillflanking him. Alonso and Moses were the wing-backs.
Hull were off the back of big defeats against Liverpool and Arsenal too, so which team was able to steady their ship better was likely to be the key to this game, and it took until the second half for the Blues to properly click, but once we did we looked like the team from the opening month of the season. Both goals came midway through the second period.
The Tigers’ caretaker boss Mike Phelan retained the 4-1-4-1 shape he has been fielding and Thibaut Courtois was the first keeper called into action, making a sharp save from a firmly struck free-kick by Robert Snodgrass. David Luiz had pulled down Dieumerci Mbokani.
There was concern for our reshaped defence when Mbokani got between Azpilicueta and David Luiz to be first to a long ball but the Congolese let it escape his control.
Hull had the bulk of the ball in the opening quarter of an hour but then Willian and N’Golo Kante began to make their presence felt, with the Brazilian firing a shot across the face of goal. For Liverpool, Leroy Fer opened the scoring in the eighth minute with a tap-in to punctuate a dominant beginning to the game for the home side.
But the Reds steadily turned the screw as the contest progressed and Roberto Firmino nodded in a leveller early in the second half.
The Brazilian then won a penalty with seven minutes remaining and James Milner maintained his flawless record from 12 yards to hand his team another victory.
Matches today
l 4:30 PM: Manchester United VS Stoke City.
l 7:45 PM: Real Madrid VS Eibar.
l 9:00 PM: Burnley VS Arsenal.
