Jo\u00e3o Pedro produced a career night as Chelsea dismantled Aston Villa 4-1 on Wednesday, a result that reignited the Blues’ Champions League hopes and moved them into fifth place. Cole Palmer also scored as Chelsea resumed control after the restart, and Pedro completed his hat trick to put the match beyond reach.<\/p>\n
The victory ended a three-game winless run and, according to the report, \u201cLiam Rosenior\u2019s men were stellar in the face of adversity.\u201d The win sees them take fifth place from Liverpool, getting within three points of the rapidly sinking Aston Villa.<\/p>\n
Pedro has been the missing piece Chelsea sought for years and, after a slow start following his summer move from Brighton for $81.6 million (\u00a360 million), he has taken off since Rosenior’s arrival. He played a key role in Chelsea\u2019s 2025 Club World Cup triumph upon arrival and had quiet opening months this season. Since Rosenior took charge, Pedro has eight goals in as many Premier League games and also scored a crucial brace against Napoli in the Champions League to secure direct qualification to the round of 16. He now has 14 Premier League goals this term, equaling Nicolas Jackson\u2019s best single-season output with three months remaining. At 24 years old, the striker looks set to keep improving.<\/p>\n
Player ratings (selected):
\nGK: Filip J\u00f6rgensen – 7.0 – Netted a couple of crucial saves, including a one-handed denial of Ollie Watkins.
\nRB: Malo Gusto – 7.6 – Grew into the game and delivered the cross for the equaliser.
\nCB: Wesley Fofana – 6.6 – Struggled for physical presence and left late with a hamstring concern.
\nCB: Trevoh Chalobah – 7.3 – Key interventions to tidy defensive errors.
\nLB: Jorrel Hato – 7.4 – Early error led to the opener but improved thereafter.
\nDM: Reece James – 7.5 – One of the better performers despite a mistake that nearly cost a second goal.
\nDM: Mois\u00e9s Caicedo – 6.8 – Frequently caught out of position on transitions.
\nRW: Cole Palmer – 8.6 – Bright performance, finished a rebound for the third.
\nAM: Enzo Fern\u00e1ndez – 8.0 – Dictated possession and created the assist for Pedro’s brace.
\nLW: Alejandro Garnacho – 8.5 – Confident display with an assist.
\nST: Jo\u00e3o Pedro – 9.8 – Involved in all four goals on his first Chelsea hat trick.<\/p>\n
Subs: Romeo Lavia (75\u2019 for Malo Gusto) 6.0; Marc Cucurella (79\u2019 for Fern\u00e1ndez) 6.3; Tosin Adarabioyo (79\u2019 for Fofana) 6.2; Andrey Santos (85\u2019 for Palmer) N\/A; Liam Delap (85\u2019 for Pedro) N\/A. Subs not used: Robert S\u00e1nchez (GK), Beno\u00eet Badiashile, Josh Acheampong, Marc Guiu.<\/p>\n
Match stats: Possession 43% Aston Villa, 57% Chelsea; xG 0.88 Aston Villa, 3.92 Chelsea; Total shots 9-15; Shots on target 4-8; Big chances 2-5; Passing accuracy 86%-91%; Fouls 10-9.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Jo\u00e3o Pedro’s first Chelsea hat-trick powered a 4-1 win over Aston Villa and boosted Chelsea’s season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7511,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,172],"tags":[1162,1509,1508],"class_list":["post-7512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-epl","tag-analytics","tag-cole-palmer-chelsea","tag-joao-pedro-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7511"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}