Chelsea vs Watford match report: Chelsea smiling again after 'sad' first half while Watford left to wonder

Chelsea 3 Watford 0

(Getty Images)

It took two half-time substitutions to win this game for Chelsea, and to underline how far they have come in the last few years.

FA Cup third round - as it happened

Chelsea walked through the first half of this game, and at the interval they were drawing 0-0 with a spirited, intelligent Watford side. Jose Mourinho had rotated his way back a few years with a team selection devoid of Cesc Fabregas, Eden Hazard and Diego Costa.

With no desire at all for a replay – with Capital One Cup and Champions League games on the horizon – Mourinho had to intervene to try and win the game. So, at the break, he brought this Chelsea team back up to date, throwing on Willian and Diego Costa, both signed since his 2013 return to Stamford Bridge.

“I was worried at half-time,” Mourinho admitted afterwards. “The game was always under control but we were not strong enough in our attacking dynamic to score. And in these matches when you don’t score you have that risk.”

Soon enough, the game changed. Costa paired up with Didier Drogba up front and they overwhelmed Watford. Chelsea scored three goals within 14 minutes and all of the Championship side’s hard work was rendered irrelevant. “I tried to change the direction of the game and Diego and Willian were fundamental, they played very well,” Mourinho said. “In the second half the team followed them. I needed some guarantees.”

The two substitutes combined for the first goal, which effectively won the game. Costa charged down the left, causing panic. He laid the ball right to Loïc Rémy, who passed it on to Willian. With just enough space on the edge of the box, the Brazilian curled a shot into the far top corner of the net.

The next goal started with Costa again, this time on the right. He exchanged passes with Drogba and shot, only for Craig Cathcart to block it with his hands. Referee Kevin Friend played advantage and Rémy struck the bouncing ball into the net.

Zouma (5) celebrates with Cahill (24) as he scores Chelsea's third (Getty Images)

Mourinho, slightly curiously, started his post-match press conference by praising the referee’s decision as “great refereeing”. He had criticised it in his television interviews straight after the game, before Friend had told him that he had in fact seen the handball.

Then, two minutes later, the impressive Kurt Zouma headed Cesar Azpilicueta’s cross in to kill the contest.

Chelsea, then, are in the fourth round of the FA Cup although Mourinho was in no mood at all to discuss the quadruple. “I am confident that we can win against Newcastle next week,” he said. “That is the only thing I am fully confident on. We do not go for four competitions. We go for the next match.”

But if Chelsea are to stay competitive in all four tournaments, they may need better performances from their squad players than they saw here. For the first half, at least, this felt like watching a Chelsea team from two years ago, with John Obi Mikel and Ramires – back from injury – in midfield, and not very much movement or imagination in front of them.

Chelsea had a difficult job to do, picking through Watford’s intelligently assembled 5-4-1, and they were unable to do it, except for one Drogba header which compelled Jonathan Bond to save.

If Mourinho wanted a ferocious response to their 5-3 defeat at White Hart Lane on New Year’s Day, this was not it. He even described the first-half performance as “a bit sad”.

At the start of the second half, before the Chelsea substitutes had a chance to impose themselves, Watford continued to threaten. Troy Deeney, who worked ferociously hard all afternoon, held the ball in the inside-right channel and drove it across the box, Filipe Luis touched it and Petr Cech had to save.

If Watford were to win this game – and that did not feel like a ludicrous suggestion for the first hour – they needed to score one of those chances. “We arrived here with a nice dream in front of us, to surprise Chelsea,” said the Watford coach, Slavisa Jokanovic, afterwards. “Our real life begins again in our next training session. If we want to come back to a stadium like this again, we must focus on what is in front of us, the Championship.”