Chelsea vs. Leicester Recap

The champions of the Premier League square off today in a pivotal Week 21. The Leicester Foxes starting lineup is Schmeichel in goal, Morgan, Huth, Fuchs, Chilwell, Mendy, Drinkwater, Ndidi, Albrighton, Musa, and Vardy looking to improve on a strong past three games. The Chelsea Blues starting lineup is Courtois in goal, Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill, Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso, Willian, Hazard, and Pedro on the wing. Diego Costa did not travel with the team this week after talks of him fighting with a trainer over a back injury. More importantly, a Chinese superteam bid 80 million pounds for the informed striker this week, so there are many rumors of Costa leaving but we will see.

The game started off slowly for Chelsea as it looked like the defense just woke up, and Leicester was playing like they were on Red Bull for the first 3 minutes. Vardy sent Musa wide, looking for a cross. Musa cut inside and then sliced the ball which was saved by Courtois. Despite the early scare, Chelsea regained composure and advanced up the field with pace. After four very quick passes the ball just outside the box, the ball came to Azpilicueta and was crossed in towards Pedro. Fuchs misread the ball as it bounced off his knee after a deflection. When the ball landed, Hazard had space to shoot but laid it off to Alonso. Alonso tucked the ball into the bottom corner past Schmeichel and gave Chelsea the lead within the first five minutes. Back and forth possession went for the next twenty minutes of the match until Vardy started to edge farther and farther down the right side of the pitch. Eventually, Vardy had a one on one with Cahill, cut outside and gained some space to put in a low bouncing cross. It was an awkward ball to deal with and Luiz had to slide in to clear it but hesitated because he could possibly hit it into his own net. Luiz pulled his leg back and left Courtois to pick the ball up. However, Courtois was only able to swipe the ball away since it was a split second reaction after Luiz pulled away. It was an unnecessary scare for the Chelsea defense and led to a succession of Leicester corners, but to no avail, the half ended 1-0 in Chelsea’s favor.
The second half started off very similarly as the first half. Five minutes in Fuchs was given a yellow card for holding Willian from attacking the wing. Willian’s free kick was deflected off Mendy and came out to the first half goal scorer Alonso. Alonso took a touch and shot a low driven ball and was deflected off Wes Morgan’s leg, but the ball bounced past Schmeichel into the net before he could react. Ten minutes of midfield play later, Pedro plays a cheeky backheel into the box to Willian who struck it first time into Schmeichel’s chest. The ball popped up into the air and Pedro was able to head it over Wes Morgan just bouncing into the bottom left corner. That goal really capped off the game for Leicester as they could not stop the league leaders, even without their top scorer. Alonso was the Man of the Match and really shined in the light of not having Diego Costa. Chelsea now leads the league by 7 points and look to continue their fantastic season against Hull next weekend.