Chelsea found a way past League One side Scunthorpe United as they scored two goals to advance to the fourth round of the FA Cup, winning 2-0. Diego Costa found the back of the net for the third time in three consecutive matches when he opened the scoring before young Ruben Loftus-Cheek killed off the encounter by bagging his first senior goal at the Stamford Bridge.
Costa opens scoring early into contest
There was an early breakthrough in this FA Cup 3rd round tie when the hosts found the back of the net only 13 minutes into this match. Branislav Ivanovic pumped a cross in towards Diego Costa and the Spanish international forward guided the ball, using his left foot, into the back of the net.
Luke Williams, 34 minutes into the contest, has a go from outside the box but Asmir Begovic made a comfortable save to keep his clean sheet intact. With five minutes to go before the halftime interval, Willian cutback onto his right foot and let fly from 20 yards away, but his shot was always rising and it soared over the top of the crossbar.
In the 43rd minute, Williams got involved in the action again as he scampered into the eighteen yard box, Kurt Zouma though, made an excellent recovery run to tackle to the ball out for a corner which came to nothing. Then Kevin van Veen sent in a delicious ball into an area where there were two Scunthorpe footballers in the area but neither could get onto the cross.
Willian, off of a free kick, whipped in a ball towards the far post in the first chance of the second half, but none of his other teammates could get onto the end of the cross which was smothered by Luke Daniels. A bit of controversy ensued, 54 minutes in, as van Veen looked as if he got tripped by Ramires in the 18 yard box. However, the referee did not listen to any of the appeals given by the visiting footballers.
Scott Laird had a second opportunity to send a ball towards Craig Dawson, after his first attempt got blocked by a Chelsea defender, only for the attack to get thwarted by the far side assistant who raised his flag on the captain.
Loftus-Cheek scores first Chelsea goal
A second goal found the back of the net for the hosts nine minutes after Scunthorpe had began to pressure the Blues. Willian laid a ball off to an overlapping Cesar Azpilicueta who then proceeded to hit a pass back towards the center of the area where the young Ruben Loftus-Cheek made a nice run onto the ball before pouncing on it and firing emphatically past the Irons goalkeeper.
73 minutes had ticked off the clock when the Scunthorpe supporters believed they had found a goal of their own, but their hopes were quickly squandered when they realized that van Veen had hit the side netting. Paddy Madden, six minutes later, had a go from some distance as he saw that Begovic was off his line. His attempt, unfortunately, went array and never troubled the Chelsea shot stopper as it flew well over the crossbar.
Chelsea could not clear their lines completely as the match was winding down and as a result, Jordan Clarke hit a rocket of a first time shot only to see it smash off the top right hand corner of the goal. Neal Bishop had the last kick of the match, off of a corner, as his effort squirted just wide of the near post in what would have been a mere consolation prize.
In the end, the Premier League side had too much quality about them and deserved the clean sheet by playing some excellent defense throughout while controlling possession in the final third of the pitch.