London - Chelsea beat Wigan Athletic 1-0 Sunday to keep up their 100 per cent start to the season. Deco scored the only goal in the third minute - his second goal of the season and his second from outside the box.
The win gives Chelsea two wins from two games, and lifts them above Liverpool, the only other side with two wins so far, on goal difference.
West Ham could join them at the top of the table later this afternoon.
For Wigan it was a second successive good performance, but a second successive defeat.
After last Sunday's emphatic 4-0 victory over Portsmouth, Chelsea made just one change, Michael Essien returning in place of Mikel John Obi.
Wigan lost their goalkeeper, Chris Kirkland, to a back injury suffered in the warm-up and replaced him with Mike Pollitt.
For Kirkland it is yet another blow caused by his fallible body. Given England's goalkeeping problems, any sort of run of form could bring him into contention for the forthcoming World Cup qualifiers.
It took Chelsea just three minutes to take the lead, Deco bending in a free-kick after Lee Cattermole had fouled Nicolas Anelka just outside the box.
They didn't have it easy, though, against a purposeful Wigan side.
Petr Cech saved with his feet from Amr Zaki after seven minutes, and Wigan's impressive Egyptian signing was denied by Chelsea's goalkeeper again midway through the first half.
After a lively first half came a more sluggish second, with a surprising number of misplaced passes.
Chelsea had nothing of the fluidity of a week ago, but then in Wigan they faced far stiffer opposition.
Frank Lampard almost added a second from Essien's cut back 23 minutes after the break, only to be denied by a fine tackle from Cattermole.
Wigan stole a late equaliser at Stamford Brdige to check Chelsea's title charge last season, and they almost managed something similar again, Cech making a low fingertip save ten minutes from time to deflect Olivier Kapo's drive wide.
By the end, Chelsea had retreated deep, all thoughts of being the great entertainers apparent gone. Crucially though, they took the three points.
Dpa jmw pj
241435 GMT Aug 08
