Chelsea See Red, Fall to Aston Villa

 1-0 

First-place Chelsea travelled to Aston Villa looking to stretch their fourteen game unbeaten streak in the Premier League.  Chelsea won the previous meeting at Stanford Bridge earlier in the season, but for whatever reason manager José Mourinho has never won at Villa Park.  Today it was the latter streak that held up as Aston Villa handed Chelsea their first defeat in fifteen matches.

Aston Villa have had a poor run lately, winning only one of their last five matches, but came out today with confidence and intensity.  The back line of Villa was especially on its game today and halted several Chelsea attacks by catching them offsides.

The first-half ended scoreless with each club only managing one shot on target, and a goal dis-allowed for Chelsea.  On a corner-kick Nemanja Matić put the ball in the net, but he controlled the ball with his arm and the goal did not stand.  The more important stat of the first-half proved to the yellow cards issued, most notably shown to Chelsea's Willian.

As the second-half progressed manager José Mourinho decided to make a few changes, but left Willian despite carrying a booking.  The decision turned out to be fatal as moments later Willian was called for a foul from behind and was shown a second yellow card leading to his dismissal (R.C. 68').

Now playing with a man-up advantage, Aston Villa were able to penetrate the Chelsea defense and score the crucial goal.  Fabian Delph stole the ball off Ivanovic to initiate the attack and played the ball wide right to Marc Albrighton in space.  Albrighton was able to send a return ball into the box for Delph and he got just enough of a heel-flick to beat keeper Cech for the goal (82').

Chelsea's fortunes did not improve as the match closed out and a second red card was shown to Ramires for a malicious foul on El Ahmadi.  Moments prior Ramires saw a yellow for verbal dissent, but for the foul he got a hard red and could face a lengthy suspension.

Today's loss snaps Chelsea's long unbeaten streak and the club will have to shake it off with a Champions League match coming on Tuesday.  Next for Aston Villa is another home league game against Stoke City.