Chelsea moved to the third place on the Premier League table as interim manager Guus Hiddink started his reign at Stamford Bridge with a narrow 1-0 win over Aston Villa on Saturday.

All eyes were on Chelsea at the start of the game and the Blues did not disappoint as they completely dominated Aston Villa in the early stages of the match. It was not long before Chelsea were celebrating and the goal came in the 19th minute when Frank Lampard played in Nicolas Anelka with a superb ball and the French striker made no mistake from close range.

Chelsea should have had doubled the lead minutes later but Brad Friedel pulled off a brilliant save to deny John Terry whose header appeared goal bound. Villa's best chance of the first half came in the 33rd minute when Ashley Young struck the post with his free kick while Emile Heskey somehow managed to head wide from a great position.

Terry went close once again just three minutes into the second half and this time his header was cleared off the line by Stiliyan Petrov. Villa slowly stepped up the pressure and Petr Cech had to be alert in order to first deny Gabriel Agbonlahor and then save Gareth Barry's low shot.

However it was Chelsea who came closest to scoring another goal late in injury time when Deco played through a superb ball for Michael Ballack but Friedel pulled off another great save to deny the German but was unable to help his side avoid losing the game.