It’s not been a great season for Pedro Neto since his big-money move in the summer, but now only Cole Palmer and Moisés Caicedo have been voted Man of the Match more often ... and this new (at least for us) role that he filled in this game offers some promise for the future — both for him personally perhaps going forward for the team without a proper striker available for another month at least.

But a bigger sign of his lack of confidence right now came when he was played through one-on-one against Emiliano Martinez. Palmer hesitated, slipped and failed to get a decent shot off, something unthinkable in the first 18 months of his Chelsea career.

Chelsea could fall to seventh in the Premier League after suffering a 2–1 defeat to Aston Villa thanks to a late game mistake by goalkeeper, Filip Jörgensen.