Crystal Palace 0-1 Chelsea. Match highlights video, player ratings: Sarri on Fabregas and Giroud

A second-half goal from N'Golo Kante was enough to give Chelsea a hard-fought 1-0 win at Crystal Palace. A second consecutive away victory means Chelsea remain fourth on 43 points but are now two behind third-placed Spurs and five clear of Arsenal. Defeat leaves Crystal Palace 14th on 19 points.

Player Ratings 

Here are player ratings by WhoScored. What Maurizio Sarri said following the last victory of the year.

Patience

I think we played against a dangerous opponent. They are dangerous on attacks. We had to have good positions. We were in good control of the match. We didn’t kill the match so for us it is difficult to defend in the box. For 85 minutes we were very good, without conceding for the opponents. I didn’t like that we weren’t able to kill the match before.

Kante's third goal this season

I think he has to think to defence first of all. Then about attacking. The movement was very good and the right timing. It is important for when you play a team low in density. For us it is important to have. Now we have to work on Loftus and Barkley for this. Loftus is a great player with the ball, but he can improve a lot without the ball.

Giroud

The problem is his ankle. We have to wait, later in the evening I will see the doctor for the first result. We will know more tomorrow. In teh last two days we were a bit unlucky. Yesterday in ten minutes we had three minutes, Fabregas, Loftus and Drinkwater.

Fabregas injury

Neck injury. I don’t know [if it is long] it was in the last few minutes of training.

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