A week into Antonio Conte’s Premier League career and, at first glance, life at Chelsea is proving all rather predictable. This was a second successive win secured late, courtesy of a goal from Diego Costa, with Watford left as deflated as West Ham United had been five days earlier. Dig deeper, though, and the visitors’ ability to recover from a rather disjointed display and claim success felt rather more significant. It was a demonstration of clout.
Conte, for all his frustrations with the transfer market and his intention still to recruit, had the depth of quality on his bench to erode the hosts’ authority. He could fling on Michy Batshuayi, plucked from Marseille for £33.1m this summer, in partnership with Costa to force Chelsea level, and inject Victor Moses’s energy on the flank where Pedro Rodríguez had been rather aimless. Most of all, he could introduce the class and invention of Cesc Fàbregas, against opponents who had just started to doubt themselves, to provide a winner.
Fàbregas, unused on Monday, was flung on for the final 12 minutes here and in effect changed the complexion of the game. Watford were distracted by his presence, infuriated by the needle the Spaniard injects into the challenge and wary of his ability to thread a pass through the clutter. Where Eden Hazard had previously been forced deep to seek out the ball and exert any kind of influence, now the Belgian felt liberated, with Fàbregas drawing the attention elsewhere. It was Hazard’s low shot, spat from distance, that Heurelho Gomes spilled for Batshuayi to ram in the equaliser.
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