LONDON // Remorselessly, relentlessly, Chelsea just keep on going. The season may only be eight games old, but already it seems as though they have one hand on the Premier League trophy.
After all, Jose Mourinho always wins the league in his second season at a club.
The one doubt about them was whether they could do it without Diego Costa, absent at Selhurst Park with a hamstring injury.
There will be tougher games than Crystal Palace away and there may perhaps be occasion when they miss his predatory instincts, but Loic Remy worked the channels well and this is a midfield that can conjure its own goals.
Cesc Fabregas, who has made such an impact this season, scored his second of the season, but this, really, was Oscar’s game as they triumphed 2-1.
The Brazilian put Chelsea ahead early with a brilliant free-kick, arched just inside the left-hand post, and he was the wall in the one-two that allowed Fabregas to poke in the second.
Oscar may not have attracted the attention Fabregas and Costa have this season but his importance to Chelsea should not be underrated.
He is an unusual footballer, somebody who can take the breath away with moments of unexpected and imaginative brilliance – the chip from wide on the right for Brazil against Portugal to win the final of the Under-20 World Cup in 2011, his back-heel nutmeg on Andrea Pirlo against Chelsea in the Uefa Champions League in 2012 – but he is also incredibly hard working and more than capable of making a tackle.
Before the Palace game, he had scored one and set one up in the league this season but, according to whoscored.com, he has also made 2.4 tackles a game, while registering 2.6 shots a game and a pass completion rate of 85 per cent, 1.4 of them key.
Those are extraordinary all-round statistics. Last season (when his role was slightly different), he scored eight, set up two, managed 2.2 shots and two tackles a game and completed 83.3 per cent of passes, 1.5 of them key.
The strange thing is, Oscar does not look like a tackler. He is of narrow torso and boyish face, while his long sleeves and general air of neatness give the impression of a player of three decades ago, the sort of fragile waif who used to ghost about the flanks.
It is hard to think of another player in recent history like Oscar. In his youth he was always compared to Kaka, the Brazilian midfielder, and given his ability and surprising industry that perhaps makes some sense. But he plays deeper than Kaka did, as a bona fide midfielder, an artist with a tackle, a grafter with a first touch.
He is the man who provides balance in the midfield: Fabregas creates – and he had another excellent game – Nemanja Matic breaks play up and Oscar fills in as required. The combination is extremely effective.
Chelsea perhaps might have been tested rather more had they been forced to play a man down for longer.
But just over two minutes passed between Cesar Azpilicueta’s red card for a studs-up lunge on Mile Jedinak and Damien Delaney picking up a second booking.
Fraizer Campbell did turn in a late goal from Wilfried Zaha’s low cross but the game never looked like slipping out of Chelsea’s control.
That perhaps is the worst thing for their rivals; Chelsea effectively closed the game down after going two-up. For the final half-hour they were untested and unextended by the hosts.
There is a lot more to come.
sports@thenational.ae
