There was a sense of inevitability about the way it ended, even though Aston Villa never stopped trying to grab the goal their performance deserved. Everybody inside Stamford Bridge knew what to expect when César Azpilicueta charged down Chelsea’s right flank in stoppage time and slipped a pass inside to Romelu Lukaku, who only had one thing on his mind when he received the ball on the edge of the area.
If the footwork from Lukaku was impressive, the strike was even better: a rising, snorting, left-footed screamer that left Villa’s goalkeeper, Jed Steer, hopelessly grasping at thin air. It was a masterful piece of forward play from one of the deadliest strikers in the world and, as the ball soared into the net, it was not hard to see why Chelsea made prising the Belgian away from Internazionale their top priority during the summer.