Eden Hazard scored twice as Chelsea defeated Newcastle United 3-1 at Stamford Bridge on Saturday with returning Nigerian international, Victor Moses, putting up a dazzling performance.
The 26-year-old, starting for the first time in almost two months due to an injury, influenced proceedings from his right-wing-back position, culminating in two assists.
A sloppy defending on the part of the reigning champions saw them slip to a goal down.
Dwight Gayle stunned the hosts when he opened the scoring with just 12 minutes on the clock.
The Blues failed to deal with a long ball from the visitors before Thibaut Courtois rushed out to claim Marcos Alonso’s attempted back-pass.
Though he denied Jacob Murphy, the rebound fell to Gayle, who finished off the move with a low drive to stun the hosts.
Chelsea then drew level moments after through Hazard.
Andreas Christensen had hit the post, a long ball from Cesar Azpilicueta, who had been rested against Swansea, was cleared but only as far as Hazard, who fired past Karl Darlow to restore parity.
Moses then took the game by the scruff of the neck.
First, the ex-Crystal Palace star’s beautiful pass for Alvaro Morata put the Blues in front in the 33rd minutes.
Alonso’s cross-field pass found Moses out on the right and the wing-back’s subsequent pass into the box was missed by the Newcastle defence and found Morata, who headed in his ninth Premier League goal of the season.
Conte’s side went on to dominate the game but had to wait until the 74th minute to get a third which came from the penalty spot.
Moses was brought down by Matt Richie in the area and Hazard converted the resulting spot-kick to hand the Blues a comfortable advantage.
