If this World Cup season does end in the Maracana with yet another Spanish triumph, Juan Mata and Fernando Torres may well look back nine months to this night in Swindon as a turning point.
Sidelined for much of the season under the management of Jose Mourinho, the class of Mata and then Torres was the difference as Chelsea quickly established a 2-0 lead and ultimately progressed with comfort into the fourth round of the Capital One Cup.
The strength of the opposition must clearly be taken into account but, having been personally challenged on Saturday by Mourinho to prove him wrong, an answer of sorts arrived last night.
Mata was still short of the form that has made him Chelsea’s Player of the Year for two consecutive seasons but, in providing the assist for Torres’s first and splitting Swindon’s defence on several occasions, it was a timely reminder of his quality.
Torres, though, was the clear man of the match, scoring the first after Mata’s intervention and then quite brilliantly creating Chelsea’s second for Ramires. As promised, both Mata and Luiz were selected for Chelsea in a starting line-up of quite extraordinary strength for a Capital One Cup tie.
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