CHELSEA STRIKER ROMELU Lukaku scored at Stamford Bridge for the first time as his double sealed a 3-0 win against Aston Villa on Saturday.
After scoring on his second Chelsea debut in the win at Arsenal in August, Lukaku made it three goals from three appearances with a pair of predatory strikes.
Lukaku, who previously played for Chelsea from 2011 to 2014, is back with the Blues following his club record £98 million move from Inter Milan in the close-season.
The 28-year-old had never netted in front of Chelsea’s home fans before, but he ended that drought in the first half to the delight of the 40,000 capacity crowd.
Mateo Kovacic scored Chelsea’s second goal and Lukaku struck again in the final moments as the European champions made it three wins from their first four league games.
Thomas Tuchel’s side are second in the Premier League, behind leaders Manchester United on goals scored.
Chelsea are only the second club, after Manchester United, to win 600 Premier League games.
Saul Niguez made his Chelsea debut after his deadline day move from Atletico Madrid as Tuchel made six changes from the 1-1 draw at Liverpool before the international break.
There were rare starts for Callum Hudson-Odoi and Hakim Ziyech, while Marcos Alonso captained the Blues for the first time.
Despite the much-changed line-up, Chelsea made a vibrant start.
Tuchel’s men were inches away from an early goal when a corner was cleared off the line by Ezri Konsa, with the ball rebounding to safety via the crossbar.
They didn’t have to wait long to open the scoring as Lukaku struck in the 15th minute.
Kovacic played a superb through-ball towards Lukaku and sprinted into the Villa area, turned inside Axel Tuanzebe and drilled a fine low finish past Jed Steer.
Ten years after he first played there, former Manchester United and Everton star Lukaku had his maiden Stamford Bridge goal in his 15th appearance for all his clubs at the stadium.
He made the most of the moment with a prolonged celebration in front of the Chelsea fans.
Ollie Watkins almost grabbed an immediate equaliser for Villa as his low drive was pushed away for a corner by Edouard Mendy.
Watkins was denied again when he tried to jink around Mendy, only for Thiago Silva to slide in and block the goalbound shot with his chest.
With Chelsea suddenly vulnerable and Saul looking out of his depth in his first taste of the Premier League, Mendy was all that stood between Villa and an equaliser.
He repelled Tyrone Mings’ stinging strike, then recovered to brilliantly save Konsa’s close-range effort from the rebound.
Jacob Ramsey was next to be frustrated by yet another agile Mendy stop just before the interval.
Tuchel responded to the Villa blitz by ending Saul’s underwhelming debut after just 45 minutes, with the Spanish midfielder replaced by Jorginho.
Chelsea were back in control within four minutes of the restart thanks to a blunder from Mings.
Under pressure from Kovacic, the Villa defender played an under-hit backpass that the Croatian seized on before gleefully shooting into the far corner from 12 yards.
Kovacic’s first league goal since 2019 was almost followed by another when the midfielder curled just wide from the edge of the area.
That put Chelsea on cruise control as they conserved energy ahead of their Champions League opener against Zenit St Petersburg on Tuesday.
Lukaku rounded off a memorable personal evening deep into stoppage-time when he lashed past Steer from just inside the area.
Give the black card the black card! (see what I did there)
@Potatoe-man: Very impressive
Did they not try the sin bin before?video referee is the way to go but the old men running GAA won’t want that.
Video refereeing doesn’t suit as the black card is ruining club games aswel
As you know the black card allows for a replacement so with what?
Video ref won’t work as not every game is televised and very few club games are. Rule has to be enforceable at all levels. 7 minute sin bin for all yellow card offences (10% of game) is the fairest solution.
People don’t have a problem with hawk eye and it’s not available for most gaa games
Number 1 is if the pundits and commentators learn the rules of it. They’re lack of knowledge is what’s causing a lot confusion with it
Dessie Dolan springs to mind. Earlier in the season he have out yards about the black card and its lack of consistency when one wasn’t given despite the fact the player in question wasn’t brought to ground. People tend to believe what the likes of Dessie Dolan have to say and pay a lot of heed to their opinions
Get rid of it all together it’s a load of sh*te lets be honest here
The thing that confuses me is the rules for the black card have always been absolutely defined to those 5 offenses. However they’re has always been confusion because everyone, refs included, seem to have taken their own interpretation. The only solution for me involves a bin, either for the player or the black card itself
By the letter of the law keegan shouldn’t have got a black card. But it was a cynical foul to stop Connolly charging at goal – which is what the card was brought in for, so shouldn’t really complain. Sin bin would be better tho…..
That’s pretty much the way I always saw it. It wasn’t a black card but as a mayo fan I didn’t really have any complaints given the circumstances. Not much else Keegan could have done.
I’ve watched that video over and over and I don’t think you can be certain that he went down after feeling contact, rather than going down because the contact unbalanced him, when they are both running at pace and the contact isn’t expected.
But the fact that there is uncertainty even after watching a video answers the question for me….. Get rid of it.
@Augustus hoop:
Easily answered. I have played rugby my entire life, and I can tell you that I have yet to see a player successfully bring an opponent to ground by placing their arm on someone’s shoulder.
Playing rugby and watching Gaelic Football, you realize just how hard it is to bring someone to ground when they don’t want to be brought there, and sadly how quick GAA players are to hit the deck when they could stay up if they wanted. That isn’t a knock on Connolly – all the players act like that
Sin Bin
Why aren’t the refs professional? I mean the game can still be amateur but give some extra motivation for people to get into reffing.
What do you mean by pro exactly, they are paid as it is
Ther was never any need to introduce the black card in the first place.we had a yellow and red .and if applied properly there would be no need for the black….the cavanagh rule as we will call it should have a straight red for pulling a man down and a 4 week suspension…that would have sorted out that problem…
It has to go that a yellow becomes a sin bin an maybe wit video ref for foul play too. The black card isn a massive punishment to bigger teams like dublin cause the sub coming on is as strong as the man coming off. If u compare that to a player like Johnny Doyle getting black carded for kildare they haven’t got anybody on the bench to replace him at near his standard.
Get rid of its ruining the game , or change the rules of it I think a black card should only be given when it’s a goal scoring opportunity. It’s a hard because nobody seems to know what the difference is with fouls if it’s a yellow or a black card and the refs are not consistent with the cards at all. Get rid of it and maybe get a sin bin
How many black cards were given for verbal abuse and remonstrating with officials?
The sin bin was tried as well before and it didn’t work out sometimes games ended up 11 players vs 15, just get rid of the black card and go back to the way it was as yellows and if theirs a goal scoring chance and it’s a professional foul, straight red!
@Paul Friday Shannon:
What game ever ended up at 11 v 15? Even if it did, such an imbalance would only be temporary.
The only problem with the sin-bin was that managers didn’t want it. There wasn’t any of the same confusion or commentary with the sin-bin that we get with the black card. And now that managers have dealt with the frustration of the black card, I think they would welcome the sin-bin back.
Give it the red card
We need to simplify the rules and make it easier for the refferee . Video ref might work but could only be used in the bigger stadiums so it can’t be rolled out universally
Video analysis won’t help as black card is ruining club games aswel
Video analysis won’t do as the black card is ruining club games aswel
McGee is correct in that sin bin (and video analyis) would not work for club games. County managers lose touch with the club game. The problem with football is that the tackle as defined is not effective in restricting or dispossesing a player in possesion and players resort to tactics to prevent opponents gaining possesion. It is too easy to keep possesion and travel/ solo and hand pass the ball away in football compared soccer, hurling or hockey. The solution lies in redefining the tackle to the compromise rules form or force the player in possesion to ‘show’ the ball more and make it easier to disposses a player. The latter could be achieved by removing the hop of the ball and tightening up on the steps in the toe to hand solo enabling tacklers to d steal the ball off the toe. Also restricting the handpass (received handpass must be kicked, this would also reduce the blanket defence) gives tackler scope to block the kick. It is very difficult to block a handpass. But nothing will happen while playing rules have to be approved by congress. The GAA must use the rugby approach and engineer the codes for continuous improvement.
The intentions around it are correct but the implementation of if it is poor. The incompetence and inconsistencies of referees will probably see it’s demise and we’re back to the same old pulling and dragging it was introduced to get rid of.