Demba Ba made quite the impact in his Chelsea debut, scoring twice as the Blues rolled past Southampton 5-1 and on to the 4th round of the FA Cup.
Southampton vs. Chelsea: Final score 1-5, Ba nets a brace in his debut
Demba Ba scored a brace in his Chelsea debut as the Blues rolled in to the fourth round of the FA Cup with a 5-1 thrashing of Southampton
Julian Finney
Southampton stood toe-to-toe with Chelsea for the opening 20 minutes doing an excellent job of not letting Chelsea's dangerous attacking options get a lot of space. The Blues new signing Demba Ba looked on the precipice of being dangerous a couple times, but didn't appear to have his timing down with his new teammates just yet.
The Saints hard work paid off in the 22nd minute when Jason Puncheon picked up a blocked pass deep the midfield. He wasted no time spinning around towards goal and rocketing a low pass right to Jay Rodriguez who sprinted past Gary Cahill and beat Ross Turnbull with a shot just over the sliding goalkeeper's hand.
The goal woke up Chelsea.
In the 35th minute, Eden Hazard received a nice back heel from Victor Moses on the left wing and raced in to the Saints box before making a short cross to a trailing Juan Mata. Artur Boruc got a hand on Mata's shot but it wasn't enough to stop it from rolling ever so slowly towards the open goal where Demba Ba got his toe in the ball, beating out Steven Davis, to collect his first goal as a Chelsea player.
Chelsea continued to pour on the pressure and added a second goal right before the halftime whistle when Ashley Cole made a great cutback pass to Victor Moses at the top of the Saints box. Moses took one quick touch and sent a shot across the face of goal in to the far corner of the net as Boruc made a hopeless dive at the ball.
As for the second half, well it was all Chelsea.
In the 50th minute Mata sent a perfectly placed chip in to the center of the Saints box where Branislav Ivanovic out jumped two Southampton defenders and headed the ball past Boruc to put the Blues up 3-1.
Just eleven minutes later Chelsea got a fourth goal. Ramires found Hazard on the edge of the Saints box who waited patiently for Ba to make his run before putting the ball right on the strikers foot. Ba didn’t waste the opportunity beating an stretched out José Fonte (who was stretched off with an injury on the play) and scored his second goal of the match.
Fernando Torres who?
Southampton's lousy day continued as Steven Davis was called for a handball in the box in the 82nd minute. Sitting on a hat trick Ba asked to take the penalty but was denied by Frank Lampard who pointed at the captain's arm band before stepping up and making it 5-1.
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