London: Considering they were down to 10 men for all but 28 minutes of their match against Leicester, Chelsea’s performance was quite commendable in their 2-1 win. There was an early red card for Conor Gallagher for two fouls within a space of six minutes by the mid-fielder. In their previous match too, Chelsea had a player sent off.
Chelsea manager, Thomas Tuchel said: “To give such a huge disadvantage (to his team) we have to stop doing this. We cannot behave like this if we are on yellow cards and we have to learn very, very fast. This cannot be repeated. Conor is responsible for what he did and he knows this was a huge mistake.”
He added: “It is not purely his fault alone because it is a set-piece for us, we are sloppy with how we take set-pieces at the moment. We lack belief and we lack precision. But it’s a very, very bad decision from Conor. I’m happy we showed the mentality that was needed to have the chance to win it. We were lucky in the end not to concede the equaliser but the mentality was very good.”
Chelsea had much the better of the first half’s play and should have taken the lead early but Ruben Loftus-Cheek’s shot went wide and Reece James had a shot hit the post. Chelsea were disallowed a penalty in the 11th minute by a VAR check which found Kai Havertz off-side.
Within two minutes of the start of the second half Chelsea finally took the lead. Left back Marc Cucurella moved into the City box to pass to the £50m signing Raheem Sterling from Manchester City, whose skilful shot looped over the goalkeeper after a slight deflection. Three minutes later Stirling was unlucky with his shot hitting the post after he had received a pass again from Cucurella.
Stirling doubled the lead in the 63rd minute when he picked up a cross from James in the six-yard box and firmly guided the ball home. But Chelsea’s two-goal lead didn’t last long as in the 66th minute Harvey Barnes scored at the near post from a pass by Jamie Vardy. Earlier, in the first half, a Leicester goal was ruled out for a foul by Barnes on goalkeeper Edouard Mendy.
Vardy, in the 79th minute, missed a one-on-one chance with Mendy when the goalkeeper charged out to block. Leicester kept pressing hard towards the end and a shot by Yardy went just wide and then Ayoze Perez hit the bar. Ten-men Chelsea managed to hold on to their lead under relentless pressure at the closing stages.
Leicester manager, Brendan Rodgers said Barnes should not have had the goal disallowed. He said: “It was very frustrating not to have taken at least a point. We are disappointed with the goal that was disallowed. But we went to sleep at the start of the second half. We were too passive and let them play through. It was too easy.”
