There were no wild celebrations from Mauricio Pochettino, just a slow and deliberate double fist pump from his technical area. Another day navigated at Chelsea. These days that is as much as he can ask for.
Here, against a Newcastle team for whom the injury problems continue to accumulate, Chelsea were not persistently impressive. They scored early through Nicolas Jackson but looked as if they may start to splinter when Alexander Isak equalised just before half-time.
Ultimately, though, Pochettino’s players showed a bit of mettle and as we approach the final games of another lousy season, that is encouraging.
Chelsea scored twice in 20 second half minutes and both were fine goals. The first was struck true and low by the home team’s best player, Cole Palmer. With England manager Gareth Southgate here to watch, this was a performance that should rubber stamp his place in Thursday’s international squad.
The second, meanwhile, was taken well by a player who has taken longer to settle, the expensive Ukrainian Mykhailo Mudryk.
There was a scare late on when Newcastle’s Jacob Murphy — on as a first half replacement for the injured Anthony Gordon — thundered a rocket of a shot high into the net from an angle. But Chelsea saw the game through without alarm. They are eleventh in the Premier League now and have a game in hand on most of the clubs above them. It all still looks and feels pretty ordinary but if Pochettino wishes to see a sixth home league win as a small step in the right direction than it seems churlish to begrudge him.
Newcastle’s record at Stamford Bridge has been poor for a long time, but this is a Chelsea team capable of losing anywhere. So it was perhaps not a surprise that proceedings took an awfully long time to come to life.
Chelsea scored in just the seventh minute, but even that did not ignite the contest. Newcastle enjoyed quite a bit of possession — more, perhaps, than they would have expected — but did not do an awful lot with it. Chelsea, on the other hand, lacked the authority to really capitalise on their early lead.
It was a valuable goal, nonetheless. Chelsea’s last game — a 2-2 draw at Brentford a week gone Saturday — was characterised by the away fans signing abusive songs about Pochettino. An early goal was therefore particularly welcome.
Cole Palmer, probably the game’s best player early on, began the move from deep by feeding right back Axel Disasi down that side. Disasi was allowed to make good progress and when he crossed to the near post the ball was not cleared well enough by Sven Botman.
It was Palmer who then took possession again, but his low shot across goal did not seem powerful enough to trouble Martin Dubravka in the Newcastle goal.
Jackson was to exert a decisive influence, however. Standing with his back to goal, he made contact with the type of back flick that usually does not come off, but it was enough to send the ball into the corner to Dubravka’s right hand side.
On the touchline, Howe looked bemused and things soon got worse. Anthony Gordon, watched here by Engand manager Gareth Southgate, hurt his knee and after doing his best to play himself back into full mobility, eventually succumbed and was replaced by Jacob Murphy in the 36th minute.
By that point nothing much else had happened. Palmer and Jackson both had low shots saved by Dubravka while Isak failed to make contact with a cross whipped across goal by the Newcastle substitute.
But just as they were within sight of half-time, Chelsea’s soft centre was revealed once again.
Defender Trevor Chalobah failed to make good a clearance and when Bruno Guimaraes picked the pieces, he did brilliantly to thread the ball through to Isak on the left.
The Swede still had much to do, but opened his body up well to shift the ball to his right and curl it past Djordje Petrovic into the far corner.
That had the makings of a transformative goal for Newcastle. They had not played at all well, but Chelsea’s mental state is such that they struggle to collectively deal with setbacks.
Indeed, Newcastle almost took the lead in the opening moments of the second half as Miguel Almiron stood up Malo Gusto and drove a rising shot towards goal that Petrovic used two hands to touch over.
It was a better game by now, for sure. Palmer was still a threat down the Chelsea right and his low cross sped across the face of goal in the 53rd minute. Then, two minutes later, Raheem Sterling found the side netting from an angle.
As the hour approached, so the game continued to improve. This was more like it and pretty soon it had its third goal and possibly its best. Once again there was a Newcastle error as Dan Burn sliced needlessly out of play.
But when the throw-in was funnelled by Moises Caicedo to Enzo Fernandes and on to Palmer, he whipped a wicked, low, left-footed shot past Dubravka from 22 yards.
Burn made up for his error almost immediately, retreating to block a Sterling shot on the line after the Chelsea winger broke clear and rounded Dubravka.
Things did not get any better for Newcastle in the period that followed. Burn was soon adding to Howe’s injury woes after falling and feeling pain in his back. He was replaced by Emil Krafth.
Despite that, Newcastle did not lie down. They played with spirit, but the more they pushed for the goal they now needed, the more they left themselves vulnerable at the other end.
In the 76th minute they were exposed brutally as Chelsea put the game to bed. Jackson got away down the left, passed the ball inside to Conor Gallagher and when Mudryk arrived to take it from his toe, the Ukrainian eased past Fabian Schar and then Dubravka to slide the ball into an empty net.
