Pedro Neto was signing autographs in the crowd before the final whistle had sounded, but he and Chelsea had already ensured the hard work was done. Points on the road up north were in the bag, at long, long last.
On the face of it, there was nothing particularly extraordinary about a 2-0 win at Everton secured through goals by Neto 44 seconds after the interval and then a few seconds away from added time. However, this was a victory so rare perhaps Xabi Alonso and his team won’t even appreciate its significance.
It was the first time Chelsea had won a meaningful Premier League match north of the Midlands since early August 2022, discounting a couple of triumphs at Burnley in seasons when the Clarets were relegation fodder.
In the 1,532 days since, failure on every single occasion to beat Manchester United, Manchester City, Liverpool, Newcastle, Leeds, Sunderland and Everton. Not this time. Chelsea came with fight and left with all three points pocketed, overtaking their hosts in the Premier League table and climbing up to fourth, for the time being at least.
In their previous nine trips to Everton, Chelsea had scored a meagre two goals - a fact Alonso could scarcely believe when informed by Standard Sport in his pre-match press conference at Cobham on Friday.
“Really?” the Chelsea manager asked. Two goals in a single afternoon arrived this time, as Chelsea turned the screw after half-time following a nip-and-tuck first 45 minutes in which they were probably the second-best team.
At the double: Pedro Neto scored a brace for Chelsea against Everton
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Alonso said he was “confident” his free-scoring side would put right their Everton away-day toothlessness, and it is a testament to how threatening an attack they have that they did so without the need for any of their frightening front three to get in on the act.
As Morgan Rogers, Cole Palmer and Joao Pedro failed to add to their goal involvements for the season, Neto stepped up with composed finishes passed beyond the reach of England No1 Jordan Pickford.
On came Mike Penders in the 75th minute and for all of 13 minutes of added time. The Belgian, 21, became Chelsea’s youngest goalkeeper in Premier League history.
Chelsea provided the latest evidence that they are evolving under Alonso, no longer a soft touch
He punched a free-kick clear confidently, helping the Blues to hold out for that most rare of things: a Premier League victory in the north for a team who have so often found that things tend to go south when they play away from home in the top-flight.
At the Hill Dickinson Stadium, though, Chelsea provided the latest evidence that they are evolving under Alonso, no longer a soft touch in these sorts of games.
They had been shown four yellow cards by the 34th minute but that was more an indication of being aggressive and up for the battle than a suggestion of any more worrisome indiscipline.
It was a routine away win for Chelsea that has not been part of their usual routine. The celebrations at full-time were unsurprisingly avid as the Blues kept their first clean sheet in the Premier League for nine months to the day, since the first league match of the short-lived Liam Rosenior era. It was a day of righting past wrongs for Chelsea.