Maurizio Sarri praises character of his Chelsea side

Speaking on Sky Sports, Jamie Redknapp ripped into Benitez’s gameplan and went so far as to claim that the Spaniard’s strategy didn’t quite qualify as football.

The big news is that Eden Hazard has finally received his first start of the season, while Mateo Kovacic makes his full debut in Chelsea colours.

Chelsea got back in front with a fortuitous goal four minutes later from Yedlin, who had stretched his foot out to block a shot from Alonso which had looked to be going wide.

But too often, Chelsea failed to find a way through and were particularly frustrated in the first 45 minutes. It’s an own goal from DeAndre Yedlin.

Newcastle’s 5-4-1 prevents this by having an extra man in the middle because of the back three. Newcastle substitute Joselu had previously cancelled out Eden Hazard’s penalty.

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Jamaal Lascelles, Benítez’s captain, was not even on the bench. A raft of debuts for the side Federico Fernandez, Fabian Schär, Ki Sung-yueng & Salomon Rondon all make debuts.

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“We got lucky but it gives us confidence we can be poor and still get results”.

“There is a rick in both of them individually at the moment that we have to be careful about”.

Chelsea’s third victory from their opening three Premier League games keeps them level with Liverpool and Watford – and ahead of champions Manchester City – at the top of the table, but Sarri refused to indulge any talk of potential title aspirations.

Chelsea were in dominant fashion as they totalled 81% possession in the match, with Sarri left surprised by Benitez’s defensive approach to the fixture.

Jorginho put on a masterclass during Chelsea’s 2-1 victory against Newcastle on Sunday, recorded some pretty incredible statistics. Joselu brought things back to parity as he scored one back in the 83rd minute. Maurizio Sarri’s men upped the pressure throughout the second half before Marcos Alonso scored a late victor with ten minutes to spare.

Newcastle, meanwhile, is 0-1-1 in the Premier League thus far, securing its first point of the season last weekend at Cardiff.