Diego Costa, Marcos Alonso and Nemanja Matic have propelled Chelsea to within 90 minutes of the Premier League title as their goals downed Middlesbrough tonight at Stamford Bridge and also consigned the Teeside club to relegation to the Championship.
A win at the Hawthorns on Friday night will see the west Londoners confirmed at champions for the fifth time.
Those with longer memories will see this result as justice for the 1988 two-legged play-off relegation/promotion encounter between the two sides which saw Chelsea go through the First Division trap door while Boro gained promotion to the top flight.
The Blues won the second match 1-0 at the Bridge but had lost 2-0 in the first leg.
Tonight it was all about not if Chelsea would win, but by how many.
Middlesbrough were simply awful and had the Blues hit 10 goals, it would not have been a surprise.
Two minutes in and Chelsea almost score when Marcos Alonso crashed a venomous left footer from just inside the Boro penalty area. Brad Guzan somehow got his body on the ball, but it zipped off him, crashed against the underside of the crossbar and away from danger.
Diego Costa claimed on 20 minutes that he was prevented from slotting home a deft pass from Hazard. But centre-back George Friend out-muscled the Brazil-born Spain striker.
The goal, when it did come, three minutes later was simplicity itself. A slipped pass by the mercurial Fabregas teed up Costa, who cooly slotted home from close range.
That was Costa's 20th league goal of the season.
- Chelsea's Marcos Alonso celebrates scoring his side's second goal of the game during the Premier League match at Stamford Bridge, London.
At the third time of asking Alonso finally got the goal he deserves. A power drive on 35 minutes went through Brad Guzan's legs at the near post after the perfect pass from Cesar Azpilicueta.
Moses was next up to test the Boro goal. as Fabregas masterclass continued and the pass to the wide man was perfect. Moses chested the ball down, let fly with a daisy-cutter. But this time Guzan wears alert and smothered the goal-bound effort.
There was no change of personnel at half-time, but the restart was almost identical to the first, but this time it was Pedro who rattled Guzan's crossbar with a blistering shot.
Azpilicueta thought he would try his luck on 51 minutes. His 25-yarder, while not troubling Guzan, did give the goalkeeper a moment of panic.
An Alonso drive should have been tapped in at the far post by Costa, but then striker was just a yard too late.
Gary Cahill mist have been thinking he was not getting any action, so, on 53 minutes, he let fly with a shot that Guzan punched clear. This was quickly followed by a Fabregas effort that took a slight deflection and inched just wide of Boro's goal.
Number three came on 65 minutes from the right boot of Nemanja Matic, who, after intricate set-up play between Hazard, David Luiz and Fabregas smashed the ball home from close range.
Head coach, Antonio Conte mindful that the Blues face WBA in four days time, replaced Hazard and Pedro with Willian and Nathaniel Chalobah.
John Terry made an appearance as his time at Chelsea ends in a couple of weeks. He came on for a camero role with six minutes on the clock, replacing David Luiz.
The day of destiny is but four days away.
Teams:
Chelsea, Courtois, Alonso, Fabregas, Hazard, Pedro, Moses, Costa, Matic, Cahill, Azpilicueta, Luiz
Subs: Begovic, Zouma, Ake, Loftus-Cheek, Willian, Terry, Chalobah
Middlesbrough: Guzman Da Silva, Friend, Gibson, Clayton, Negredo, De Roon, Downing, Chambers, Forshaw, Traore
Subs: Konstantopoulos, Bernardo, Leadbitter, Barragan, Bamford, Guedioura, Gestede
Referee: Graig Pawson