It will take more than a thumping FA Cup quarter-final victory over the worst team in League One to ignite Chelsea\u2019s season as it enters the defining stretch. This was, at least, a step in the right direction. Or perhaps it was just good for the club to avoid any further chaos.<\/p>\n
The occasion was framed by Liam Rosenior\u2019s decision to ban his vice-captain, Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez, for the game and Chelsea\u2019s next one, which is here against Manchester City in the Premier League next Sunday. The manager felt he had to act after Fern\u00e1ndez\u2019s none-too-subtle message to Real Madrid during the international break. Basically, he is bang up for joining them.<\/p>\n
It was the last thing Rosenior needed after a run of four straight defeats, the two against Paris Saint-Germain adding up to an 8-2 aggregate loss in the Champions League last 16. The others against Newcastle and Everton in the league were just as damaging as the club fight to finish in the top five. Anybody who has seen their most recent accounts knows the importance of a return to the Champions League.<\/p>\n
There is an impossible-to-ignore undercurrent of unhappiness around Chelsea and Rosenior has felt the burn of the spotlight. Yet he was able to enjoy this procession, which has kept alive the club\u2019s hopes of silverware.<\/p>\n
Jo\u00e3o Pedro scores Chelsea\u2019s second goal against Port Vale. Photograph: Paul Childs\/Action Images\/Reuters<\/p>\n
The occasion was always going to go down in Port Vale\u2019s history, irrespective of the result. Only once previously had they played at this stage of the famous old knockout competition \u2013 in 1954, when they beat Leyton Orient before losing in the semi-finals to West Brom.<\/p>\n
It was a break from the misery of their league campaign; Vale are rock bottom of their division, 15 points from the last safe spot and almost certain to be relegated. Their 6,000-strong band of supporters were determined to savour the day, to get behind any moment of positivity. Example \u2013 the ol\u00e9s they chanted during a brief period of possession in the first half.<\/p>\n
The truth was that there was precious little for them, the die cast after 64 seconds when Jorrel Hato put Chelsea in front. It was 3-0 by the interval, Jo\u00e3o Pedro scoring the second and Cole Palmer \u2013 captain for the day \u2013 forcing an own goal for No 3. And the second half was a complete mismatch. Chelsea might have had double figures. They contented themselves with four more \u2013 a pair of headers from Tosin Adarabioyo and Andrey Santos, a tap-in from Est\u00eav\u00e3o Willian and a penalty from the substitute Alejandro Garnacho.<\/p>\n
The eye-popping comparisons between the clubs were numerous and it was hard to ignore the line about the value of the starting lineups in terms of fees paid. Chelsea\u2019s cost \u00a3439.8m. Vale did not pay a penny for any of their XI. Rosenior was in no mood to take chances. He made three changes from the team he sent out at Everton. With Fern\u00e1ndez not under consideration, Marc Cucurella and Mois\u00e9s Caicedo dropped to the bench. Fern\u00e1ndez was in a seat behind the Chelsea substitutes.<\/p>\n
The Vale manager, Jon Brady, wanted to keep things tight in his 5-4-1 formation for as long as possible. So the early goal was a disaster and it added up to the acid test of his players\u2019 mettle. What a soft one it was, too, Pedro Neto\u2019s corner sparking panic and a goalmouth scramble. Hato swiped the breaking ball home.<\/p>\n
It was easy to fear Vale\u2019s spirit and physicality would get them only so far, with the goal for 2-0 another bad one to concede. Liam Gordon was beaten too easily on to a bouncing ball up the Chelsea inside-right by Neto, who pulled back a low cross. It was the prompt for a flash of top-level quality from Jo\u00e3o Pedro. First there was the movement and then the fake-to-shoot trick that unbalanced the Vale centre-half Kyle John. It allowed the Brazilian the time to pick the finish into the corner.<\/p>\n
Chelsea\u2019s Tosin Adarabioyo rises the highest to score their fourth goal Photograph: Nigel French\/PA<\/p>\n
Moments before Santos chipped the ball over the top towards Neto, there had been a bit of grumbling from the Chelsea fans after their team checked back rather than playing forwards. In some respects, Rosenior and his team were on a hiding to nothing: their best efforts measured against the paucity of the opposition.<\/p>\n
Chelsea did not thrill in the first half and they did not get in behind Vale very often. But they did play through them for the third goal, Malo Gusto\u2019s lovely give-and-go with Jo\u00e3o Pedro getting him in for a shot for the far corner that Joe Gauci could only parry. Palmer\u2019s shot on the rebound went in off Jordan Lawrence-Gabriel.<\/p>\n
The second half was one-way traffic, Chelsea setting up camp in the Vale half. Est\u00eav\u00e3o was twice denied by the woodwork but he got his reward towards the end after Garnacho\u2019s shot rebounded off a post. The Vale marking for the Adarabioyo and Santos headers was nonexistent and the last word went to Garnacho after he tricked the Vale substitute Tyler Maglorie into a clumsy challenge.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It will take more than a thumping FA Cup quarter-final victory over the worst team in League One…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":513237,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-513236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=513236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/513236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/513237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=513236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=513236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=513236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}