Leicester 1 Chelsea 3: Chilwell, Havertz and Kovacic keep up Potter’s resurgence and leave Foxes in alarming position
GARY LINEKER made the most of a rare Saturday off with a trip to watch his beloved Leicester.
Well if he gets another any time soon, they should ask him to bring his boots because even 30 years after he last kicked a ball, you’d still back his finishing to outshine most of these.
The fact Chelsea nabbed all three points was fair enough, given the general balance of play.
But the Foxes still had more than enough clear sights of goal to have got something out of it – and they blew all of them bar one.
Lineker, the deadliest striker this club has ever had, looked down from his seat in the main stand, just another disgruntled home fan, after his Match of the Day Tweet row.
It took nearly an hour for home fans to start belting out his name, and their hero reacted with a modest smile and a little wave.
And really there wasn’t a whole lot else for him to chuckle about on a day when Chelsea showed flashes that there is certainly a good team in there waiting to break out.
As for Leicester. Just bad to worse, really…and a noose seemingly ever tightening around under pressure boss Brendan Rodgers’ neck.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Daniel Amartey and Harry Souttar will wake up with cold sweats at the chances they missed here. If only they had someone with Lineker’s eye for goal, eh?
Amartey was the first guilty man, somehow bulletting a header wide from no more than a yard when James Maddison whipped in an admittedly fiercely travelling free kick.
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Souttar had one kicked off the line, and Dewsbury-Hall’s volley came off the bottom of his boot with keeper Kepa out of his ground.
It would have been even worse, too, but both Joao Felix and Mykhailo Mudryk had goals – rightly – disallowed for offside.
But it was no more than they deserved when Foxes old boy Ben Chilwell volleyed them ahead from a tight angle.
Well executed it may have been, but keeper Danny Ward hardly covered himself in glory, though.
Fair does to Leicester for levelling it after riding their luck through Felix’s ruled out effort then, with a strike Lineker would have been proud of – and a disaster for Felix, who was caught in possession 30 yards from his own goal,
Ricardo Pereira didn’t need a second invite to pounce and while his backheel to Patson Daka was breathtaking, the finish was even more so.
For Daka stepped to his left, took a stride or two and unleashed an absolute rocket which flew into the corner..
From chanting “we want Rodgers out” to taunts mocking the West London big spenders. And football fans have the cheek to get the hump when they’re called fickle.
Suddenly the Foxes were flying and twice Kepa had to be on his toes with impressive stops to keep the visitors level.
First he needed strong hands to beat away a Maddison drive from the right of his box, and then produced an even better stop from Kelechi Iheanacho’s low strike.
Bizarrely it was Chelsea who needed a kick up the backside. Havertz got one in the abdomen instead, from Amarty’s wild hack on halfway.
Mind you, the German’s revenge – in the last of four additional first half minutes – wasn’t half lethal. A dish best served cold? This one was red hot.
Enzo Fernandez’s cute and clever dink over the backline was absolute precision. Yet Havertz’s magnificently controlled first time volley over Danny Ward was sensational.
Time to clear those throats for another burst of wanting Rodgers out, then.
And they’d have been deafening if Wes Fofana’s header from Chilwell’s corner – a chance made in Leicester if ever there was one – hadn’t been pushed over by Ward.
If it was intended to spark the Foxes into life, it seemed to have done the trick when they launched an up and at ’em onslaught that had Chelsea pegged back.. At least briefly.
They should have made the most of their pressure, most notably when Souttar had two bites at the cherry to finish, but Conor Gallagher booted off the line.
Then Kepa stretched to clear his lines and when it pinballed to Dewsbury-Hall, he couldn’t volley into a near empty net.
Costly? You bet, because Havertz promptly crossed from the right, Mudryk nodded back from the left and Mateo Kovacic showed Leicester how to finish.
No wonder Lineker looked hacked off at the final whistle….