GettyImagesJuan Mata and his Chelsea team-mates celebrate the match-winning goal against Norwich

The beautiful game would lose some of its allure if football ran true to form often. But Norwich City’s Premier League defeat to genuine title contenders Chelsea was an entirely predictable outcome.

- Mata the man for Benitez's Blues

Chris Hughton’s men were disciplined and defensively resolute, but Petr Cech will have few quieter shifts behind a well-drilled visiting outfit that already bears the hallmarks of Rafa Benitez’s fabled organisational prowess.

The Blues pressed high up the pitch and dictated largely from start to finish at Carrow Road. City roused themselves early in the second period for a brief flurry but it took until well into stoppage time for the Blues to survive any real alarms. Ashley Cole was coolness personified to clear his lines six yards out when Chelsea failed to deal with a Robert Snodgrass free kick. Sebastien Bassong’s towering header from the resulting corner bounced up and over. That was largely the sum total of Norwich’s attacking efforts. Chelsea never remotely threatened to scale the heights of their 8-0 demolition job against Aston Villa at the weekend, but even with Frank Lampard and Eden Hazard kept in reserve the Blues always exerted total control.

David Luiz was given another chance to impress in a holding screening role alongside Jon Obi Mikel, but the Brazilian was his usual erratic self – two strikes from range that threatened to short circuit the electronic scoreboards at either end of the stadium were counter-balanced by one or two exquisite passes which opened up a resolute Norwich rearguard.

The star of the show was Juan Mata. Chelsea’s impish Spaniard was a key factor in the Blues big Stamford Bridge win against Norwich earlier this season but Mata was arguably even more influential here deployed in a much more central role to weave his special brand of magic. There was little surprise at the source of the only goal – Mata instinctively sweeping beyond Mark Bunn after seemingly being surrounded by a posse of home defenders 20 yards out.

Victor Moses spurned one of the few other clear-cut opportunities in a second period where the conundrum was always whether Chris Hughton’s men could abandon their defensive station to exert sustained pressure on Cech’s goal.

Hughton introduced a trio of attacking-minded changes as the game meandered to a conclusion that really looked inevitable from the moment Mata had punctured Norwich’s resistance before the interval.

The Canaries festive run gets little easier with Manchester City now heading to Carrow Road this weekend smarting from Boxing Day defeat at Sunderland. As it must always be with Norwich and their Premier League survival prospects, the key barometer should be measured in the distance between them and the current bottom three. A 10-point gap at kick-off remained unaltered following the latest round of top flight fixtures.

You suspect City would readily accept that status quo moving into the New Year with Norwich set to ring in 2013 at West Ham after another duel against one of the big boys on home soil this Saturday.

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