Chelsea blew Aston Villa away in the first half of their FA Cup fourth round replay at Villa Park.
Chelsea went 2-0 up after goals from Conor Gallagher and Nicolas Jackson.
Gallagher’s excellent strike was set up by Noni Madueke after some brilliant hold-up play from the winger and Dion Dublin, who was commentating on the game for BBC Radio 5 Live, loved his assist.
The Blues’ league campaign is not going well, but they have had a lot of success in the cups this season.
Chelsea are now into the fifth round of the FA Cup, where they will play Leeds United at home, and also take on Liverpool in the Carabao Cup final at the end of the month.
Dion Dublin praises Noni Madueke’s hold-up play
Madueke held the ball up like a centre-forward before Gallagher’s goal and that did not go unnoticed.
On the role he played in Chelsea’s opener, former Villa striker Dublin said: “I think it was [Boubacar] Kamara who gave the ball away. Nice hold-up play from Noni Madueke and he rolls it back to Gallagher. It is an easy side-foot from Gallagher. Now they are on the same page.”
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Noni Madueke should start against Crystal Palace
Madueke was not great in his last league start against Liverpool, which is probably why Mauricio Pochettino dropped him for the Wolverhampton game afterwards.
However, he did enough tonight to retain his place. Raheem Sterling is not in the best of form right now either, so that is another reason to keep the £30m (BBC Sport) wide man in the team.
Hopefully Madueke can start adding more goals to his game. Do that, and Chelsea could have a very scary winger on their hands.
The England U21 international is already quite a skilful dribbler. He just needs to improve his end product.
