Chelsea secured their first away win under manager Mauricio Pochettino and their 150th London derby victory in the Premier League when they beat Fulham 2-0 at Craven Cottage on Monday night.
Mykhaylo Mudryk scored his first goal for the Blues inside the opening 18 minutes, just 82 seconds before Armando Broja netted his first goal for nearly a year to double the visitors' advantage.
Fulham offered very little in attack and Chelsea - who had won just one of their previous 10 Premier League games - ultimately cruised to a comfortable West London derby win, which has seen them climb up to 11th place in the table and above the Cottagers in 13th on goal difference.
Marco Silva made six changes to the Fulham side that beat Norwich City in the EFL Cup last week, with Bernd Leno, Tim Ream, Antonee Robinson, Harrison Reed, Andreas Pereira and Raul Jimenez all returning to the first XI.
As for Chelsea, Pochettino made three alterations to the lineup that won 1-0 against Brighton & Hove Albion in the EFL Cup last time out, with Broja handed his first start in nearly 11 months, replacing the suspended Nicolas Jackson up front, while Conor Gallagher and Enzo Fernandez returned in centre-midfield.
Chelsea started sharply at Craven Cottage, and Broja was presented with a huge opportunity inside the opening two minutes, but the Chelsea striker could only blaze a powerful shot over the crossbar after skipping round Leno inside the area.
Mudryk then cut inside and curled an effort over, but the Ukrainian responded well and opened the scoring on the 18-minute mark, netting his first goal for Chelsea in his 21st league appearance since his £88m move in January.
Levi Colwill initially picked up the ball wide on the left flank before curling a cross into the path of Mudryk, who expertly controlled the ball with his chest before slotting home a left-footed finish beyond Leno.
Just 20 seconds after the restart, Broja scored his first league goal in nearly 12 months to double Chelsea's lead, taking advantage of a calamitous error at the back from Fulham captain Ream, who started the move by giving the ball straight to Cole Palmer on the edge of his area.
Palmer, who impressed on his first league start for Chelsea, then threaded a ball through to Broja, and although Ream managed to get back, the defender could only kick his clearance onto the foot of Broja, who without much knowledge directed the ball with the outside of his right boot into the net.
While Chelsea looked calm and comfortable in possession, Fulham were sloppy with the ball and had no real threat going forward, with their first and only effort in the first half coming in the 41st minute when Jimenez rose above Fernandez to head just wide following a Pereira corner.
Chelsea surprisingly replaced Mudryk with Ian Maatsen for the second half, but one could only presume that the Ukrainian had sustained an injury, while Fulham opted to bring on Carlos Vinicius and summer signing Alex Iwobi shortly after the break to provide some much-needed impetus in the final third.
Shortly after Vinicius directed a difficult header over from around eight yards out, Maatsen rattled the woodwork at the other end when he opened up his body and watched a side-footed shot bounce off the top of the left-hand post after receiving a cut-back inside the area from Gallagher.
Fulham showed signs of improvement, but they failed to test Chelsea goalkeeper Roberto Sanchez until the 77th minute when the Spaniard stood firm to keep out a close-range effort from substitute Sasa Lukic, before comfortably keeping out a strike from distance from former Blues winger Willian.
Chelsea will look to claim back-to-back Premier League victories when they travel to Turf Moor to face Burnley on Saturday, while Fulham will hope to return to winning ways when they play host to Sheffield United on the same day. body check tags ::
