Aston Villa 1-0 Chelsea: Key Stats and Player Ratings

Chelsea’s title hopes took a hit tonight with a 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa at Villa Park. Fabian Delph scored what proved to be the winning goal in the 82nd minute, sweeping home in style from Marc Albrighton’s cross.

The away side’s woe was compounded by a flurry of late controversy, with Willian, Ramires and boss Jose Mourinho all seeing red to leave Chelsea with nine men at the final whistle.

Here’s how the players rated:

Aston Villa:

Brad Guzan (37): Relatively underworked on his way to an 8th clean sheet of the season.

Leandro Bacuna (-14): Failed in all four of his headed duels and missed the ball with five of his nine tackle attempts.

Nathan Baker (8): Made 12 clearances and won all five of his headed duels contested.

Ron Vlaar (14): Attempted seven tackles, winning three, and made 10 clearances.

Joe Bennett (13): Deputised for Ryan Bertrand well with two tackles and three interceptions.

Fabian Delph (57): Netted the winner and completed four take ons on the break in the centre of the pitch.

Karim El Ahmadi (10): Completed five tackles, from 11 attempts.

Ashley Westwood (35): Created four chances, including one cross, and made two interceptions.

Andreas Weimann (-6): Put in three crosses but made just 15 passes.

Gabriel Agbonlahor (4): Took one shot at goal, completed one take on and put in two crosses.

Christian Benteke (8): Went up for 23 headed duels, winning 14.

Substitutes:

Marc Albrighton (14): Set up the winner with one of five crosses that he managed in his 16 minutes on the pitch.

Ciaran Clark (1): Won two headed duels and made three clearances.

Chelsea:

Petr Cech (7): Successful with eight of his 15 passes.

Branislav Ivanovic (10): Put in five crosses, finding a teammate with two.

Gary Cahill (14): Didn’t make a tackle but won two headed duels and nine clearances.

John Terry (-1): Attempted three tackles and three headed duels but didn’t win any of them.

Cesar Azpilicueta (24): Attempted 64 passes, completing 56 of them.

Nemanja Matic (-20): Far from a vintage performance from the Serbian, who won just one of seven tackles.

Ramires (-77): Shown a red card for an ugly challenge late on, Ramires made just 72% of his attempted passes.

Willian (-30): Sent off for accumulating two yellow cards and completed just one of four attempted take ons.

Oscar (-14): Disappointing once again, Oscar failed to create a single chance.

Eden Hazard (31): Completed five of ten attempted take ons, and created four chances.

Fernando Torres (29): The Spaniard hit five shots at goal, but missed the target with all of them.

Substitutes:

Andre Schurrle (5): Made ten of his 12 passes.

Demba Ba (9): Took one shot on goal and contested one headed duel.