Chelsea put four past Everton

London, March 9 - In fine goal-scoring form, Chelsea put four past Everton to register their biggest win of the season so far in the Premier league. While praising his team’s performance, Chelsea coach Frank Lampard was particularly pleased with the effort of his younger players and rightly singled out Billy Gilmour, a product of the Chelsea academy. He said: “The younger players have injected energy to the club and the fans. Look at the reaction to Gilmour. But also look at the experienced players – Pedro running from virtually inside his own half for the second goal, or Willian all over the pitch today. As a group everyone showed that energy. Billy (Gilmour) is 18 and putting him in is not a problem because I see how he trains every day.”

He added: “He’s receiving the ball in different areas on the pitch. If you don’t move it quickly, you don’t get the rhythm in our play. You need confidence to take the ball and play as he does. I am going to say a rude word …. yes, let’s go with balls, Jorginho has it, Billy has it too. Billy showed those balls in the first half, then played higher up the pitch second half. That’s a great thing for me when I’m thinking of the midfield. There’s still a long way in the top-four race (for Champions League). We have to fight to the end. It’s in our hands.”

Two early goals in each half set Chelsea on the path of an impressive victory. Mason Mount, also from the Chelsea academy opened the scoring with his sixth goal in his debut top-flight season. He started the move in the 14th minute, sliding the ball to Pedro who returned the pass with Mount’s back to goal. From there Mount took the ball on his left foot and swivelled 180 degrees to slam with his right foot from the edge of the box.

Seven minutes later Pedro grabbed the second, an unerring finish after a passing sequence which culminated in a crisp ball by Gilmour to Olivier Giroud who, in turn, fed Ross Barclay and from his pass Pedro picked his spot perfectly to the goalkeeper’s left. Everton’s best chance to score was in the first half when Dominic Calvert-Lewin inexplicably missed the target as he shot wide when it would have been easier to find the net.

Six minutes into the second half, the match was sealed with Chelsea’s third goal as Everton wilted. Taking a pass from Barclay, Brazilian Willian showed composure to put a firm drive from outside the box to the right of the diving goalkeeper. Three minutes later Chelsea completed their goal-scoring spree when Frenchman Giroud sneaked past Everton’s sleeping defence to slide home from six yards a cross from Willian.

It was truly a day to savour for Lampard but one to forget for Carlo Ancelotti, a former Chelsea coach, who was returning to his old ground after nine years.

Ancelotti, who took over as Everton coach this season and under whom Everton have showed improvement, barring this match, said: “Everything went wrong today. “It’s not difficult to analyse this game. We were not good enough defensively. We were too open, not compact, lost a lot of duels, and with the ball we made a lot of mistakes. But we can learn from our mistakes. It’s the first time, the first game where we didn’t compete. Today was wrong from the beginning.”

When asked directly whether he was disappointed with his players’ commitment, he replied: “I can analyse with you, and things I analyse with my players. Champions League is the future, that’s the target. We have to improve of course. This club wants to be competitive in the Premier League and Europe. But with this kind of performance, we have to forget it. We think we can compete and fight for Europe.”