#2 A game of two halves: perseverance pays off for Blues but Costa disappoints
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The only worthwhile piece of action in the first half was a golden chance where Costa was through one-on-one with the keeper but scuppered his shot into the stands for a potential ‘miss of the season’ contender. In what proved to be a dismal outing for him in terms of goals, he also went into the book for fouling the Everton keeper.
The rest of it was scrappy with neither team doing much to take the game to the other, just being content to play the ball about and edging it for throw-ins/corners. Indeed, not one meaningful save was required from either keeper in the first half of play.
As drab and boring as the first half was, the second was as entertaining. While the first 45 was spent nudging around the ball with both teams focused on not letting the other score, Chelsea opened up a bit more in the second.
Costa missed another sitter; he was onside but failed to make contact with the cross. Thankfully for Conte and the Blues, these misses did not come back to bite later. Chelsea probed, waited patiently and probed again before Pedro finally scored to break the deadlock. It was followed by goals from Cahill and Willian, putting it out of the Toffees’ reach in the latter stages.
