Premier League: Stoke City 0 Chelsea 4

A superb second half display from Chelsea saw them run away 4-0 winners inflict on Stoke their first home defeat of the season.

The first half lacked quality but a Jon Walters own goal right before the break gave the visitors the lead, and in the second half the Blues ran riot.

Walters added a second own goal before a Frank Lampard penalty and a Eden Hazard rocket sealed the points.

Stoke had the first chance as Kenwyne Jones found himself with room inside the Chelsea penalty area but he dragged his shot wide of Petr Cech’s goal.

And the visitors responded 10 minutes later with a nice passing move that led to Demba Ba finding Frank Lampard inside the penalty area but Asmir Begovic saved well with his feet from the midfielder’s low shot.

Chelsea opened the scoring with what was the final attack of the first half.

Hazard released Cesar Azpilicueta on the right hand side, the Spaniard delivered a dangerous cross to the back post where Walters headed past his own goalkeeper in his attempt to clear before Juan Mata could pounce.

Stoke began the second half full of life and after a Steven N’Zonzi shot tested Cech they thought they had a penalty just before the hour.

Azpilicueta appeared to bring down Matthew Etherington inside the penalty area. Andre Marriner awarded the penalty only for assistant referee Sian Massey to overrule the decision as the winger was offside.

Four minutes later the Stoke players were cursing that decision as Walters again headed past Begovic.

Lampard challenged the winger from a corner and the ball hit the Stoke man before dropping into the net.

Stoke’s misery was compounded two minutes later as Robert Huth was adjudged to have brought down Mata in the area. The decision looked harsh but that made no difference to Lampard who smashed the ball passed Begovic to become Chelsea’s second highest goal scorer with 194 goals.

Chelsea hammered the final nail into the Stoke coffin in the 73rd minute as Hazard fired an unstoppable shot into the top corner.

The Belgian received the ball inside the Stoke half from Mata, he drifted away from Glenn Whelan and lashed an absolute rocket past Begovic.

Stoke were awarded a penalty in the closing seconds as substitute John Terry brought Walters, but the forward lashed his spot kick against the bar to complete a dreadful day for the Potters.