Crystal Palace vs Chelsea: N'Golo Kante goal justifies Maurizio Sarri's decision as Palace fail to inspire

Crystal Palace 0-1 Chelsea: Maurizio Sarri's side looked comfortable when they eventually took the lead at Selhurst Park

N’Golo Kante scored the only goal of a cagey affair at Selhurst Park as Chelsea beat Crystal Palace and recorded consecutive Premier League victories after suffering a shock defeat against Leicester.

Roy Hodgson’s plan to keep things tight unravelled when David Luiz combined with Kante as the French midfielder scored his third goal of the season.

Palace introduced Max Meyer and Connor Wickham in the closing stages in an attempt to claw back a point, but the lack of creativity allowed Maurizio Sarri’s side to comfortably seal three points.

Here’s five things we learned at Selhurst Park

1. Kante justifies Sarri’s decision

Palace’s plan was clear: keep things tight and grab a draw as the best possible result. This meant that Chelsea had a stubborn defence to work their way through, something they struggled to do for 50 minutes.

An unlikely combination broke the deadlock, Luiz and Kante. The Brazilian defender clipped a precise pass over the back line as Kante profited from some flat-footed defending to skip behind Mamadou Sakho and fire a smart left-footed shot through the goalkeeper.

The goal, his third in 20 league appearances this season, was a result of the more attacking role given to him by Sarri. Oddly, during the first half he was one of Chelsea’s most influential players in the final third and worked tirelessly to prevent Palace from launching a counter-attack. Perhaps Sarri is right after all.

2. Hazard links with Giroud

The build-up to Chelsea’s festive fixtures has been based around where Hazard will be playing, whether Sarri continues to use him as a false nine or if he will start alongside Olivier Giroud or Alvaro Morata.

The Italian manager opted to start with Giroud leading the line in what appeared to be a 4-3-3 formation with Hazard and Willian working the wings.

Sarri said Hazard could be their best striker (Getty)

The Belgian winger, who has been producing some of his best football for Chelsea this season, had a relatively quiet game by his high standards. Despite this, there was the usual highlight reel of eye-catching flicks and turns.

Hazard’s relationship with Giroud seemed to be as good as ever as the pair continued to work well off of each other, linking up with one-touch football to quickly move Chelsea into attacking areas.

3. Meyer still has to win Hodgson’s trust

Before a ball was kicked we had our biggest talking point on a Crystal Palace front when the team news filtered through at 11:00am. Max Meyer, who played an hour against Cardiff and was hauled off amid mixed reactions from the stands, was replaced by Jeffrey Schlupp in the team to start against Chelsea, once again leaving Andros Townsend and Wilfried Zaha in charge of creating chances.

The German midfielder still has some work to do to convince his manager (Getty)

Meyer’s playing time at Palace has been unusually sparse for a player more technically gifted that almost all of his teammates.

He came on in the 78th minute, which felt either 15 minutes or 78 minutes too late, but there was not enough time to seriously alter the destination of the game.

4. Chelsea struggle with tempo

While Chelsea twice hit the post and had two goals dubiously ruled out for offside, there was still a sense that they made it very easy for Crystal Palace to defend against them.

The Blues racked up an impressively high number of passes and created a couple of chances from set-pieces, but there was still something missing. The passing was slow and laboured as they advanced into the final third and they appeared to be reluctant to seriously commit players in attacking areas out of fear of a Palace counter-attack.

While there was some tidy moves, there was an equal number of disagreements and flapping arms amongst the players in yellow. Luiz and Sarri appeared to be debating something shortly before the break, but during crowded schedules over Christmas, three points will be well welcomed.

5. Palace continue poor run of home form

The defeat against Chelsea marks another match for Palace without a home win, albeit the actual winless run does not extend too far since their last victory at Selhurst Park. The fact that only Newcastle and Huddersfield have fewer homes wins than Palace’s two should be of large concern.

After conceding the opening goal, Palace began to open up and brought Connor Wickham on in the closing stages to add an actual striker to the game, but it almost felt like they were asking for trouble by not establishing themselves further up the pitch.

Failing to beat Chelsea at home will not define their season, but take a look at the wider context and consider that Palace were unable to beat or even score against Cardiff at Selhurst Park on Boxing Day.

A side that feeds off its passionate home fans gave them very little to cheer about against Chelsea, and that has been the story of their season.