London: Chelsea's Ross Barkley, right, duels for the ball with Norwich City's Mathias Normann during the English Premier League soccer match between Chelsea and Norwich City at Stamford Bridge Stadium in London, Saturday, Oct. 23, 2021. AP/PTI
LONDON, October 23 (AP) — Chelsea coped just fine without its injured strikers. The Premier League leaders romped to a 7-0 win over last-place Norwich on Saturday, with Mason Mount scoring a hat trick and the other goals spread around the team in the injury-enforced absence of Romelu Lukaku and Timo Werner.
Mount, Callum Hudson-Odoi and Reece James scored in the first half, before Ben Chilwell’s strike, an own-goal by Max Aarons and two more goals from Mount — one from the penalty spot — completed Chelsea’s biggest win of the season.
Norwich’s misery was compounded when center back Ben Gibson was sent off for collecting a second yellow card in the 65th minute when the score was 5-0.
While the visitors remained without a win and on just two points on its return to the top flight, Chelsea will stay in first place for another week after coming into the ninth round holding a one-point lead.
The European champions have a kind run of fixtures to come, too — their next two games are against lowly Newcastle and Burnley — so they should not miss Lukaku and Werner, who are out for the short term with ankle and hamstring injuries, respectively, sustained in the Champions League in midweek.
Mount had a particularly good game as a support striker to Kai Havertz, starting and completing the scoring — his goals came in the eighth and 85th minutes and then in stoppage time — and adding an assist for James’ goal with a defense-splitting pass for the wing back to chip goalkeeper Tim Krul.
Mount even had some fortune with his penalty. His first attempt was saved by Krul, who was adjudged to have been off his line when making the save. Mount had another try and beat Krul down the middle.
