LIVERPOOL, England — Steven Naismith scored a hat trick to guide Everton to a convincing 3-1 victory over Chelsea on Saturday, as the new season took another sharp turn for the worse for Jose Mourinho’s champions.
Having come on as a ninth-minute substitute for the injured Muhamed Besic, Naismith headed Everton into a 17th-minute lead at Goodison Park and quickly followed up by scoring his second with a low drive from outside the area.
Nemanja Matic pulled a goal back for Chelsea with a long-distance effort in the 36th and Mourinho’s side kept pushing for an equalizer after the break.
But Naismith put the result beyond doubt by squeezing an angled shot through the legs of Chelsea goalkeeper Asmir Begovic in the 82nd minute.
The strike sealed a second consecutive defeat for Chelsea, which went into the international break after losing a London derby 2-1 to Crystal Palace and now has just four points from its five league games.
“The results are too wrong for our quality, too wrong for our status and too wrong for what the players deserve,” Mourinho told BT Sport. “The way they are playing is not so bad as the results, but in every game everything goes against (us), even today … We are dominant — we dominate, we dominate, we dominate — they go on a counterattack and score the third goal.”
However, Mourinho said he had faith in his players and that Chelsea’s fortunes would turn.
“Let’s wait for better days, let’s wait for better results and I trust they will do that,” he said.
The problems facing Mourinho clearly start at the back, with last season’s tightest defense in the Premier League already conceding 12 goals – compared to 32 throughout 2014-15.
Thumbnail photo via Jon Super/The Associated Press
