Chelsea stay top of the pile at Christmas thanks to goals from John Terry and Cesc Fabregas as they dispatched Stoke City 2-0 tonight at the Britannia Stadium.
Having dropped five points out of the last two away games at Newcastle United and Sunderland, the Blues made no mistake on the road this time.
This was supposed to be a tricky match and last season's devastating 3-2 defeat was wiped away by an ultra-professional performance by Chelsea who controlled the match from almost the kick-off to the final whistle.
While the game went to plan, one concern for Jose Mourinho ho will be that of Eden Hazard who limped off the pitch after a hefty challenge deep into added time.
He was replaced by centre-back Kurt Zouma. Will the Belgium maestro be fit for the early-morning clash on Boxing Day against West Ham? He has three days of treatment to get ready.
The Blues started on the front foot and the early pressure saw Branislav Ivanovic have a shot on goal, but the ball was deflected for a corner.
From the resultant corner from Cesc Fabregas, John Terry popped up and bulleted a powerful downward header past Asmir Begovic to open the scoring.
It was Terry's 650th career appearance for the Blues and his first goal of the season.
Twice in the following eight minutes two excellent balls into the Stoke penalty area caused the hone side's rearguard to panic. Unfortunately there were no Blues players in position to take advantage.
On 14 minutes Diego Costa hit the deck following a strong challenge by Ryan Shawcross, but the Brazil-born Spain striker was soon up and back into the thick of the action.
Bardsley was given a yellow card by Neil Swarbrick for scything down down Hazard on 20 minutes as the challenges started to get feisty.
Courtois was soon in the action, expertly parrying away an Charles N'Zonzi low shot which deflected off Terry for a corner.
Gary Cahill then threw himself in front of a Walters effort inside the Chelsea penalty to give away a corner as Stoke produced their best spell of the match.
But Diego Costa had a brilliant chance to double the lead on 32 minutes. Shawcross was disposed and the ball was fed to him by Hazard. After racing to the edge of the Stoke penalty area, the hit-man let fly with a smart right-footer but somehow screwed the ball inches wide of Asmir Begovic's goal.
There were no changes from either side at half-time.
Fabregas had a good shout for a penalty three minutes after the restart when Ryan Shawcross clipped the Spain midfielder in the penalty area. However Swarbrick decided to go for an incorrect decision by the assistant referee for an offside on Fabregas instead.
Willian broke free three minutes and forced Begovic into a diving save to his left.
Erik Pieters was next Into to the ref's book for a needless foul on Costa.
Begovic managed to grasp a clever flick from close range by Fabregas after a twinkle-toes mazy run by Hazard set up the midfielder.
Stoke boss Mark Hughes replaced ineffectual Crouch for Mame Biram Diouf on 63 minutes.
Next up for the home side on 63 minutes was Charlie Adam for Geoff Cameron.
After almost setting up Walters with a lovely pass, Adam almost scored with a daisy-driver of a left-footer on 72 minutes, but his long-range effort was just inches wide of Courtois's left upright.
With 13 minutes of the game to go, and following excellent pressure by Stoke City, Chelsea doubled their lead and it had a little bit of good fortune attached.
Hazard passed the ball into the Stoke penalty area for the in-running Fabregas and the Chelsea No 4 scuffed a shot which had little pace to it, but had just enough to slip wide of a spread-eagled Begovic. And into the right- hand corner of his net
Andre Schurrle entered the fray with a minute later, replacing Willian.
Begovic got his angles spot on to deny a goal for the hard-working Costa. It was Costa's last action of the pitch as Jose Mourinho brought on Drogba for the striker with five minutes left.
But it was game over and three points won.