Graham Parley via jesternix.net
   
11:12 PM (1 minute ago)
      
to Anders, Chelsea
Well, we won it but I know I would be upset if I were a Villa fan.
JT may not have intended to handle the ball at the end but when you have your arm that high it's usually a penalty. I would argue he was fouled but the ref never gave that so it should have been a penalty.
And Ivanovic was lucky not to get a red card a couple of minutes before he scored the winner. It wasn't an obvious red and a yellow is certainly justifiable, but I was holding my breath.
I can't pretend we were great, but then again Villa had Benteke who was a one-man wrecking crew. He's their Drogba. His goal was fantastic and came from their only real attack of the first half.
So we have full points, but a lot of work ahead. We hardly ever got around the outside and Villa wouldn't let us pass through the middle meaning we spent a lot of time playing across the field in front of Villa.
Mata didn't look happy out on the right and was clearly rusty. Ba mistimed most of his runs and Lampard was off-key until his wonderful free kick for the winner.
Hazard started brightly but again disappeared for much of the game.
Lukaku did well when he came on and may have done enough to start at Old Trafford.
We found a way to win a game we probably shouldn't have. That's not something we could say much last season.

Graham