Pedro’s pair fuel Chelsea’s 5-1 rout of wretched Newcastle

It takes performances as pathetic as this to drain any optimism generated by a lavish mid-season outlay on attacking talent. Newcastle United looked a depressingly dysfunctional side here, a team devoid of defensive steel as they crumpled obligingly to present Guus Hiddink with a first league win at home in his second spell as Chelsea’s interim manager. Subsiding in these parts might not normally be cause for huge alarm, but the champions have not been permitted to purr like this all season.

Newcastle were feeble, their first half performance in particular the kind that invites demotion. If Chelsea lost interest at times, a 12th match without defeat assured and thoughts drifting to Paris and the Champions League, they could still rouse themselves at will. The combination between Bertrand Traoré and César Azpilicueta seven minutes from the end proved as much, the pair scything through for the youngster to register a first Premier League goal. Chelsea have not been as high as 12th for four months though, in truth, this was as easy a thrashing as they could hope to inflict. A gentle warm-up for a testing tie ahead.

Steve McClaren has his own challenges to confront. His team depart for a training camp in La Manga scarred by a sixth successive away defeat in all competitions, restored to the bottom three and with Sunderland, local rivals on an upward curve, breathing down their necks.

This was shambolic, a disgusting display lacking poise, leadership, discipline or fight. The same criticisms were levelled at the majority of these players after they succumbed to the same scoreline at Crystal Palace back in November. They were sunk from the opening exchanges, their performance summed up by Cheick Tioté’s dawdling in midfield, or the sight of their centre-halves seemingly ploughing through a quagmire as home players gleefully skipped across the surface at pace.

It actually felt dangerous to pass judgement on Chelsea given how obliging these opponents had proved to be. Certainly Paris Saint-Germain – aside from being encouraged by the twinge to the right thigh suffered by John Terry which forced him prematurely from the fray and will require a scan on Sunday – will have learned little other than that the Premier League champions can still be expansive when permitted to revel. They could run riot here without breaking into a sweat as Newcastle’s resistance extended no further than taking the kick-off.

They had been punctured by Chelsea’s first attack of any significance, Willian gliding away from his marker just inside the Newcastle half and then sliding a pass inside the hapless Fabricio Coloccini to infiltrate a ragged back-line. Diego Costa, the latest home player to sport a Zorro-style protective facial mask, held off Steven Taylor and clipped a first-time shot back across the on-rushing Rob Elliot that dribbled agonisingly into the corner of the net. The goal was Costa’s seventh in eight Premier League games.

Newcastle were split with every forward pass, as Willian, Eden Hazard and Pedro left them dizzied. The locals sensed panic in visiting ranks. Rolando Aarons, a winger filling in unconvincingly at left-back, was culpable for the second after an attacking free-kick had been hooked back to the halfway line. The 20-year-old misplaced his pass towards Daryl Janmaat, Pedro collecting and scurrying away while the Dutch international slumped to the turf in disbelief. By the time he had picked himself up Pedro had converted crisply from just outside the penalty area.

The ease with which Costa outpaced Coloccini, then cut back inside to slide a pass across the area for Willian to score the third, was disturbing. Tioté had allowed the Brazilian the freedom of Stamford Bridge to glide up-field and convert and, for all that the visiting players held impromptu arm-flapping inquests at each break of play, their deficiencies remained. Pedro and Branislav Ivanovic should have added to the lead, though no team this slack at the back can hope to resist for long.

All it took was Cesc Fàbregas’s lofted pass, arcing over Taylor, to open them up again. Pedro darted in behind the centre-half, collected on his chest and dispatched a fourth beyond Elliot. Traoré had added a fifth before Andros Townsend dispatched a consolation from distance, though that meant little. Newcastle departed the turf battered and bruised, and even the prospect of a friendly against Lillestrom in Spain will not be appealing. By the time their campaign resumes at Stoke next month, they must have rediscovered a backbone.