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Chelsea got their first win in roughly 6,784,193 years with a comfortable 3-0 victory against Bolton Wanderers. The visitors weren't really expected to provide much of a threat, so it was really a question of whether or not Chelsea were going to shoot themselves in the foot. Fortunately, the team decided not to do anything crazy, making fourth place their own again. Some quick thoughts:
- First of all, how nice is it to get a comfortable win? Chelsea were better than Bolton for about 85 minutes, and as soon as the response to David Luiz's goal had died down it became pretty obvious that three points were in the bag. This is as well as Chelsea have played in months. More of that, please.
- There was some frustration from the fans after the first half, which finished 0-0, but I was never really that concerned. Chelsea were playing good football and getting incredibly unlucky with two blown calls from the linesman - it was pretty obvious that they were going to find the net at some point.
- Now that Raul Meireles has turned back into a pumpkin, the midfield trio of Michael Essien, Frank Lampard and Ramires is clearly our best bet against 'weaker' teams. Essien isn't an ideal holding midfielder, because he's so good further forward, but this worked pretty well and gave us plenty of attacking options.This is the first time in the league that Andre Villas-Boas has been able to field that three, and I hope he sticks to it.
- I can't overstate just how awesome David Luiz was today. His passing was fantastic (the linesman got fooled at least three times by fantastic long balls) and that goal was brilliant. And he didn't do anything completely insane, which is nice.
- The scoreline flattered Bolton. We could probably have grabbed a couple of goals in the first half and we had six or so fantastic scoring chances in the second half. 3-0 is good for the goal differential, but it could have been a lot more.
- Frank Lampard's goal takes him ahead of Jimmy Greaves on our all-time scorers list and puts him at double digits in the league for the ninth straight season, a mark no other Premier League player has reached. He didn't have a great game otherwise, but that's a fantastic set of milestones for a club legend. Next up: 150.
- Ashley Cole should have conceded a penalty at some point. It wouldn't have mattered.
- It's important to remember that despite the nice feeling, Bolton were really rather bad. You can only beat what's put in front of you, of course, but not winning that match easily would have been embarrassing. But that's no reason not to be happy about Chelsea finally turning up to play.