The fans in attendance for the Bridge’s first capacity crowd since March 2020 were given plenty to cheer about by the Blues, as Marcos Alonso opened the scoring half-an-hour in with one of his trademark left-footed free-kicks. It was the 50th direct free-kick scored by Chelsea in the Premier League and we never looked back.

Our lead was doubled before the break when Christian Pulisic reacted quickest at close range to take full advantage when the goalkeeper let the ball squirm loose in the box, but the best was saved for last.

22-year-old defender Trevoh Chalobah, playing only his second senior match for Chelsea, drilled low into the bottom corner from 25 yards, completing the 3-0 victory and becoming the youngest player to score on his Premier League debut for Chelsea since Paul Hughes in 1997.

Threat from the left

The danger we posed to Crystal Palace going forward was clear from the 13 shots we managed, with half of them coming inside the box as we kept them guessing by mixing our usual patient build-up with the occasional burst of a more direct approach.

For the majority of the game, though, we kept probing and waiting for clear opportunities, with the shot attempted by a Chelsea player from the greatest distance actually being that fantastic low drive from Chalobah to complete the scoring.

It was telling that of our six shots on target, the majority of which came inside the penalty area, four of them were by the double act of Alonso and Pulisic on our left flank, with two each and both players also getting their name on the scoresheet.

Palace struggled all afternoon to get to grips with Pulisic’s trickery and Alonso’s powerful surges forward and into the box, as we overloaded their defence on that side and kept our opponents guessing about which player the real threat would come from.

Alonso’s three shots in total was also the joint-highest of any player (along with Mason Mount) and nobody made more than the Spaniard’s two key passes (equal with Mateo Kovacic).

No N’Golo, no problem

One significant absence from our line-up on Saturday was N’Golo Kante, who was missing after picking up a problem in our mid-week UEFA Super Cup triumph in Belfast.

However, Jorginho and Mateo Kovacic proved they are more than capable of taking up the slack when the Frenchman’s unique talents are unavailable to Thomas Tuchel.

Jorginho certainly had the defensive side of the midfield partnership covered, as only Cesar Azpilicueta made more than the Italian internationals' five tackles for Chelsea and his two successful interceptions were second only to Andreas Christensen among the Blues.

Alongside him, Kovacic was the one exploiting space and making things happen. In addition to the previously mentioned joint-highest key passes, the Croatian also completed more successful dribbles (three) than anyone else for the Blues as he burst forward out of midfield when the opportunity presented itself. That is all while maintaining an impressive 97.4 per cent passing accuracy, the best on the pitch.

Pressure pays off

However, perhaps the real key to our victory was the way we managed to keep Crystal Palace at arm’s length throughout, pressing them in possession high up the pitch and restricting them to just the one shot on target in 90 minutes.

That desire to challenge our opponents and win the ball back before they could get into a threatening position was shown by the fact that all 34 tackles and 11 interceptions by Chelsea players (both figures noticeably higher than those recorded by Palace) were made outside of our penalty area, and only 12 of those tackles were even in our half of the pitch.

As always, Mason Mount played a key role in leading our high press. Despite playing in the front three, he made more tackles than any Crystal Palace player, and was behind only Azpilicueta and Jorginho for the Blues.