Somehow Chelsea got to start their season with two comfortable home matches, and almost messed up the second one. Luckily for them, referee Kevin Friend and his crew missed Branislav Ivanovic scoring the winner from an offside position and John Terry later handling the ball with his hand to help his team complete a 2-1 win over Aston Villa.
Chelsea enjoyed all sorts of luck in the match thanks to an own goal by Antonio Luna early on, but it was once again a less than formidable performance from the Blues, even if Jose Mourinho will tell everyone something completely different.
Christian Benteke scored the equalizer just before half time, but Aston Villa didn’t do enough for most of the match to really threaten Cech, even if they did make life very hard for Chelsea.
Praise doesn’t bring you points. Branislav Ivanovic was offside (something the geniuses at FIFA and the FA don’t want to mess with, preferring to stick with goalline cases instead of things referees mess up a little bit more frequently) when Frank Lampard delivered the cross, bringing Chelsea the win. Did we mention that Ivanovic should have been sent off during the match for his foul on Benteke? John Terry touching the ball with his hand in the penalty box was just the icing on the cake.