For 84 minutes, Chelsea ran into a brick wall that is the Stoke City defense, seemingly on their way to another goalless draw. But the Blues found an unlikely goalscoring hero in Ashley Cole to give his side a precious 1-0 win in the English Premier League.
In other games, Southampton got their first win of the season with an impressive 4-1 result over Aston Villa. Rickie Lambert scored a brace for the Saints, with Nathaniel Clyne also getting on the scoresheet and the fourth goal coming from an own goal via Ciaran Clark. Villa got their consolation goal through Darren Bent.
At the Hawthorns, Romelu Lukaku scored the winner, 20 minutes from time to give West Brom victory over Reading and take them up there with Everton with 10 points from five games.
Arouna Kone struck for Wigan in the final minute, but it was not enough for Roberto Martinez's side with earlier goals from Hugo Rodallega and Damien Duff Fulham a 2-1 victory. A late equalizer from Kevin Nolan salvaged a point for West Ham United at Upton Park against Sunderland, after the in-form Steven Feltcher had given his side the lead in the ninth minute.
At Stamford Bridge, Chelsea huffed and puffed, but rarely threatened to blow the house down, with Stoke emboldened in the final few minutes to go and look for the winner. However, Cole popped up in the Stoke half, continuing a move he had started, to finish expertly after Branislav Ivanovic's cross reached the left-back off a deft flick from Juan Mata.
Before that it looked like it was going to be a similar result that Chelsea had to settle for against Queens Park Rangers last week. Stoke had the best chance of the first half, Jonathan Walters crashing his header onto the crossbar, when he really should have buried it into the back of the net.
Fernando Torres inexplicably failed to make contact after being out through by a brilliant ball from Mata as both teams went into the changing rooms all-square.
The second half bore the same pattern, with the likes of Oscar, Eden Hazard and Mata failing to unlock the Stoke backline.
The Brazilian international, who scored two goals against Juventus in the Champions League, had three cracks at goal from distance, but none found the back of the net. Roberto Di Matteo brought on Victor Moses, and the winger immediately provided Chelsea with some much-needed width. On the other side, however, Tony Pulis, sensing a possible three points, threw in strikers Michael Owen and Kenwyne Jones onto the field, with the latter causing some havoc in the Chelsea penalty area.
Towards the end of the match, Stoke looked the most likely to score, but like all great teams do, Chelsea dug in and found the crucial winner, hanging on in the final moments comfortably to take all three points and stay at the top of the summit.
