A late late Willian goal secured all three points for the league leaders, maintaining the all-important seven-point gap to second place Manchester City.  Only thirteen games to go!

It wasn't the greatest 90 minutes of entertainment ever produced, but there was still plenty to talk about.

PETR CECH REMAINS ONE OF THE WORLD'S BEST GOALKEEPERS

We really shouldn't need reminding of this, having watched one of the world's best do his stellar work night in and night out for the last decade, but here it is anyway.


 In case you've forgotten, Petr Cech is still one of the best in the world.  The two saves from Romelu Lukaku are as good as it gets, especially the second one that's quite possibly our save of the season so far.  

Chelsea goalkeeper coach Christophe Lollichon, biased as he may be, still puts Cech in the top four alongside Manuel Neuer, Thibaut Courtois, and David De Gea.  Trouble is of course that ?ech is easily the oldest of the four, and thus more dispensable than Courtois, who's the youngest and almost exactly 10 years the Czech stalwart's junior.  The future of the Chelsea goalkeeper shirt clearly belongs to the young man, but for now, we should enjoy the luxury of having two world class keepers.

MAYBE WHAT WILLIAN NEEDED WAS SOME COMPETITION?

That's not to say that Willian was having a bad season.  Quite the opposite in fact, having worked his way up from fourth choice attacking midfielder to surpass André Schürrle in the rotation and sometimes be preferred even to Oscar.  (Nobody can challenge Eden Hazard for the #1 undroppable of course.)  But despite all the wonderful work that the all-action box-to-box midfielder-winger-total-footballer does (it's tough to describe his position and style exactly), the one thing he's lacked were goals and assists.

 He's always done tremendous work in transition and in tracking-back, but for the price Chelsea paid (~£30m), many expected more obvious benefits as well.  

Well, the obvious benefits are now here as well, and hopefully are here to stay!  A goal and two assists in his last four games, or right about since we were first seriously linked with Juan Cuadrado.  Coincidence?  Probably not.

KURT ZOUMA IS THE TRUTH

The 20-year-old baby-faced giant joined up with Chelsea this summer after finishing out the season at AS Saint-Étienne.  In the preseason, he looked very raw and many were a bit worried about the lack of depth behind John Terry and Gary Cahill.  These worries were not exactly eased by what's turning into a subpar season from Cahill.  But there's nothing to fear, for we've seen a rather welcome and sudden improvement from Zouma.  He hasn't played a tremendous amount, but when he has he's looked better and better.  Speed and strength combined with well-timed aggression and great positioning (and hopefully not just race and nationality) have even drawn comparisons with the legendary Marcel Desailly.

While such prognostications may be a bit too premature -- as such prognostications often are -- there's no denying that Zouma has now impressed against some of the Premier League's very best forwards.  With this game, he can now add Romelu Lukaku to the collection he keeps in his pocket, a collection that also includes Sergio Agüero, Raheem Sterling, and Harry Kane (for 45 minutes).