Stoke 0-4 Chelsea: Alvaro Morata scores hat-trick

Morata, the club-record signing bought to replace Costa, was on the scoresheet again early on before Pedro extended the lead on the half-hour mark.

Both goals came from defensive mistakes by Stoke, whose manager Mark Hughes had demanded a response from his players following the disappointing midweek defeat at Bristol City in the Carabao Cup. He did not get it, with Morata rounding off the win in the final quarter-hour.

Morata accelerated past Glen Johnson and Darren Fletcher before clipping the ball beyond Jack Butland for his second goal.

He completed his hat-trick in the 82nd minute when Cesar Azpilicueta and Cesc Fabregas combined to lay on a tap-in and seal a fourth win in five Premier League matches for Antonio Conte's team.

Chelsea are 11/2 in Sky Bet's Premier League title odds and Stoke can be backed at 6/1 to be relegated.

Post-match reaction

Alvaro Morata earned the praise of Antonio Conte, who said: "I think Alvaro played very well and he took his goals very well, which for a striker is very important.

"I am pleased with the team also because it means we are creating chances for our strikers to take.

"I am pleased for his performance and pleased for the performance of the team. It is not easy to win away against Stoke and I remember we struggled here last season but won at the end. This game is always difficult."

Stoke manager Mark Hughes said: "When you go up against a side of the quality of Chelsea, or any side in fairness, you've got to make sure you don't have catastrophic defensive moments and we had at least three, which is always going to make it difficult.

"There were extenuating circumstances given our difficulties in terms of available personnel at the back and that's the difficulty we had to deal with.

"For the most part I felt we picked ourselves up after the worst start possible and kept ourselves in the game up until about the 75-minute mark."