Aston Villa vs. Chelsea, Premier League: Half-time report

Chelsea fans have been screaming for Guus Hiddink to play the youth, and on Saturday afternoon, Guus listened. Baba Rahman, Ruben Loftus-Cheek, Kenedy, and Matt Miazga were all handed starts against Aston Villa, while Alexandre Pato made his first team debut after 25 minutes, when Loic Remy was forced off due to an injury.

While the combination of Chelsea's rotated squad and Villa's general ineptitude led to some sloppy football in the early going, the Blues still looked pretty good on the whole. Loftus-Cheek tapped in a cross from Cesar Azpilicueta to open the scoring for Chelsea, while Kenedy has looked pretty good. Miazga hasn't actually been required to do anything, of yet, while Chelsea haven't managed to get either of their center forwards involved. That said, Pato did managed to draw a penalty in the dying moments of the first half, which he wound up converting to make it 2-0.

There's still 45 minutes to go and two more substitutions to be made, so hopefully the Blues will score another goal or two early on, and give Hiddink the chance to hand out a few more debuts today. Let's go you Blues!