The Report

The Blues provided the perfect response to the defeat to Arsenal at Kingsmeadow last week, taking a narrow lead in the first half before blowing Newcastle United away in the second.

Only seven minutes had passed when Dylan Williams drilled home a superb effort after a flowing team move ended with Williams' perfectly weighted one-two with Ronnie Stutter.

The hosts found a response almost immediately, Trevan Sanusi swiftly finishing after goalkeeper Ted Sharman-Lowe's pass was intercepted in a dangerous area. But back came the Blues quickly, Stutter slamming home from close range after working an excellent opening with Zain Silcott-Duberry.

In an end-to-end contest, the Magpies went close through Alfie Harrison, whose stinging strike was well stopped by Sharman-Lowe, and also hit the woodwork. But the young Blues were always a danger on the counter-attack and went into the interval 2-1 up.

Mark Robinson's side then found breathing space less than a minute after the restart, Leo Castledine snapping up a loose ball, before weaving his way into the penalty area and firing low into the net.

The midfielder had his second five minutes later, when Williams' dangerous ball across the face of goal had Blue shirts queuing up. Castledine eventually applied the finishing touch with a ruthless finish into the roof of the net, keeper Will Brown left with no chance.

A flurry of late goals then completed the scoreline in style. Dujuan Richards was next on target for his maiden strike for Chelsea, after coming on for Castledine. The Jamaican cut inside the opposition defenders before burying the ball into the bottom corner.

Stutter then made it six in injury time from the penalty spot, after Anthony Munda tripped recent men's team debutant Jimi Tauriainen inside the area. In-form Stutter made no mistake with a cool penalty down the middle, our No9's seventh goal in as many games.

The Blues rounded off an emphatic evening when substitute Diego Moreira got on the end of Richards' precise pass with the last kick of the game, easily beating Newcastle keeper Brown.

That sealed our Under-21s' biggest win of the season so far - surpassing the 6-1 victory over Blackburn Rovers on the opening day of the campaign - as we kept pace with the league leaders from our spot in fifth, two points off the top three.

The reaction

Despite the emphatic scoreline and plenty of obvious positives, Under-21s head coach Mark Robinson felt it was far from the perfect performance, even if he was pleased with the way the team reacted well in the key moments, particularly after Newcastle's equaliser and at the start of the second half.

'The responses were good,' said Robinson. 'The attitude on the whole was good, the team spirit was good and we could see the constant energy, all the things that we’d talked about before the game.

'We just felt that on a couple of occasions we got a little bit sloppy in the details with our passing, but there was a lot of really good football too. Our movement and speed of play was excellent.'

Robinson saw it as a game of two halves, as shown by our narrow lead after 45 minutes compared to the comprehensive margin of victory by the final whistle.

'We obviously started the game well and got the early goal, but were disappointed with the equaliser. There was some really good attacking play but we thought we were a little bit sloppy in our play in the first half. We turned the ball over too easily sometimes and just lacked a bit of detail.

'So although we went in 2-1 up we had a good chat and told the lads if we didn’t tidy up and have more purpose in everything we did, we could be in danger of dropping points. To be fair, some of the movement and some of the speed of football and rotation in the second half was brilliant, especially in the first 20 minutes.

'Obviously we scored two goals quite early and the second-half performance was really pleasing. There were a couple of little lapses in concentration, but on the whole we were really pleased with the second-half performance.'

He believes the difference after half-time came from using the break to look at where we were finding the most joy in breaking down our opponents, along with increasing the tempo of our passing.

'We’ve been doing a lot of work on movement and freedom of movement, but we said at half-time not to overcomplicate the game. Sometimes it’s a lot simpler than you think, if you just move the ball really quickly and with purpose.

'We were trying to thread passes through the middle when we were getting more success going around them and moving it a lot quicker. That’s what they did in the second half; moved the ball a lot quicker and around initially, then pockets of space opened up in-between due to that.

'We were trying to force passes and we told them to recognise where your success is going to come from. Initially it was by moving the ball very quickly around the outside of them, which we did well in the second half, and then gaps began to open up.'

The teams

Newcastle United 1-7 Chelsea

Chelsea (3-4-1-2): Ted Sharman-Lowe; Brodi Hughes (Richard Olise 80), Billy Gee (c), Ishe Samuels-Smith; Zain Silcott-Duberry (Diego Moreira 58), Kiano Dyer, Jimi Tauriainen, Dylan Williams; Leo Castledine (Dujuan Richards 73); Deivid Washington (Michael Golding 73), Ronnie Stutter
Unused sub: Luke Campbell
Scorers: Williams 7, Stutter 16, pen 90+4, Castledine 46, 51, Richards 83, Moreira 90+6
Booked: Hughes 33, Tauriainen 34

Newcastle (4-3-3): Will Brown, Leo Shahar, Dylan Charlton, Anthony Munda, Ciaran Thompson, Jordan Hackett, Jamie Miley (Sean Neave 60), Alfie Harrison (Ellis Stanton 61), James Huntley, Trevan Sanusi, Amadou Diallo (Kyle Crossley 76)
Unused subs: Charlie McArthur, Aidan Harris
Scorer: Sanusi 9
Booked: Hackett 18, Sanusi 41