Full time: Leicester 0-3 Chelsea
That was just brilliant from Chelsea. They ignored all the pressure that other people felt they were under and calmly took Leicester apart with some clinical attacking football. They have restored their seven-point lead and made their player of the season so far, Diego Costa, look dispensable. Thanks for your company; night.
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90 min There will be a bit of added time, nobody really cares how much.
87 min Fuchs’ acrobatic hooked shot from the edge of the area is comfortably held by Courtois.
84 min A double Chelsea change: Loftus-Cheek and Batshuayi on for the excellent pair of Willian and Pedro.
83 min Moses fails to get a penalty with a dive in the box. But would he have done it if he wasn’t exposed to foreigners every day?
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80 min “It’s often asserted by pundits (though not evidenced, natch) that “You don’t become a bad player overnight”,” says Gary Naylor. “But some players do, don’t they? A bit of pace is lost, opponents work out how to neutralise them and the confidence inexorably drifts away. Is this what’s happened collectively at Leicester City - at least in Premier League matches?”
You could certainly make that case with Vardy – teams have played him much better – but generally I think it’s a psychological issue. They had nowhere to go after last season, and that has led to a small but significant drop in their motivation and level of performance. The fact they are doing so well in Europe supports this admittedly half-arsed hypothesis.
79 min The game is starting to wind down. Eden Hazard, who gave a performance of routine genius, is replaced by Cesc Fabregas. His touch for the first goal was just brilliant.
77 min Unless Liverpool win at Old Trafford tomorrow, Chelsea will be seven points clear with 17 games to go. In a league where the top six will all take points off each other, that’s a huge lead. Their next three games are Hull (H), Liverpool (A) and Arsenal (H). If they take seven points from those matches they will almost be champions because an Antonio Conte side is not going to drop many points against the smaller teams.
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76 min Albrighton is replaced by Danny Simpson for Leicester.
72 min Another Leicester substitution: Gray replaces the anonymous Musa.
GOAL! Leicester 0-3 Chelsea (Pedro 71)
It’s certainly over now. Pedro starts and finishes the move to put Chelsea 3-0 ahead. Kante played a short pass into Pedro on the edge of the box; he produced a spectacular no-look pirouette backheel to put Willian clear on the right of the box. Schmeichel came out, Willian dinked the ball over him, and Pedro headed the loose ball past Morgan on the line. I think Willian was fractionally offside but well, who cares.
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69 min This game is over. Chelsea have not been spectacular like Spurs this morning, but in the circumstances this has arguably been an even better performance. Their team spirit is a reality glimpsed on the cusp of their 14th victory in 15 league games. Imagine how good it must be to play for Antonio Conte. He could make Wayne Slob volunteer for a marathon.
66 min Who was the last full-back or wing-back to score a hat-trick in the English top flight? Steve Nicol at Newcastle on Sunday 20 September 1987?
64 min Oh my goodness! Alonso is this close to a hat-trick. Moses lifted a deep, swirling cross to the edge of the box, where his fellow wing-back Alonso watched the ball so carefully onto his left foot before swishing a brilliant volley that flew fractionally wide of the far post with Schmeichel beaten. That was beautiful technique.
62 min We are entering the age of the acrobatic volley. Andy Carroll scored one today, and now Gary Cahill tries his luck. After a corner was headed up in the air, Cahill produced an elegant overhead kick that hit Morgan and went behind for a corner. It did hit Morgan’s arm but it was in front of his chest so there was no real appeal for a penalty.
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61 min This has been such an impressive performance from Chelsea. They have so much mental strength, much of which comes from their magnificent manager.
60 min A Leicester substitution: Shinji Okazaki replaces Robert Huth.
58 min A bit of action at both ends. Albrighton, anticipating a tackle from Alonso that never comes, falls over. No penalty. Then Hazard gets one v one in the box against Morgan, who does brilliantly to force him wide and ensure he can’t get a shot in.
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54 min Alonso has scored in the sixth minute of each half. Diego Who?!?!?!?!?!?!
53 min “How’s the alcohol-free year going?” asks Wilson Beuys. “I’ve had occasion myself to skip the good stuff, and I usually find after about two weeks the thought of drinking again seems strangely... almost dirty. As if it would sully my now-pure body. The longest I’ve ever managed was three months, and that was an illness + treatment = no alcohol thing, so speaking as someone who enjoys getting outside a tall glass of something with a bit of kick, I take my beret off to you.”
I wouldn’t take it off yet: it’s only been two weeks. That said, it’s amusing how quickly you can ascend the moral high ground. I went to the cinema on Tuesday and everyone was supping cocktails and red wine and generally enjoying life. I sneered as I savoured a room-temperature Strathmore. All those losers on the piss again.
52 min Replays show that it didn’t hit both Morgan’s legs - it deviated off Morgan and took a second deflection off the studs of Drinkwater, who knew nothing about it, before zipping past Schmeichel.
GOAL! Leicester 0-2 Chelsea (Alonso 51)
The free-kick for that Fuchs foul leads to a second goal for Marcos Alonso. It flashed across the box and was headed clear to Alonso in the D. He controlled it and drove a shot that took a double deflection off Morgan - it hit both pads, in cricket parlance - and wrongfooted Schmeichel.
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50 min Fuchs is booked for pulling Willian back in plain sight.
48 min Chelsea have started the second half strongly, as they did the first. There was a lot of hot air from Leicester in the first half, plenty of it admirable, but ultimately Courtois didn’t have that much to do.
47 min PS: if you are feeling generous. (And thanks ever so much to those who have donated already.)
47 min “Hi Rob,” says James Calder. “What do you make of Ndidi so far? He’s hardly a Mahrez-style steal at 15m quid but he looks like a longer-legged version of Kante. He can obviously pick a pass too.”
It sounds stupid but when you do an MBM you don’t really get a sense of how good a player is – you’re so busy panicking and typing and looking at emails and panicking, so you only really pick up on the highlights. But I do remember one gorgeous crossfield pass, driven all along the floor to Drinkwater, and one really good tackle at a time when Leicester were bullying Chelsea a bit. The co-commentator Owen Hargreaves had said plenty of nice things about him, and his judgement of a player is extremely good.
46 min Peep peep!
On reflection, I’m not sure Alonso was offside for the goal - it looked like a square pass from Hazard.
“Hi Rob,” says Raymond Reardon. “It’s the Russians interfering with the Guardian’s live MBM blogs that has caused multiple entries on screens.....something about doubling up on electoral votes or something.”
The Russians? They’re not all bad.
Half-time chit-chat
“Only for the record: Marcos Alonso was offside when Hazard played him, by the same (very narrow) margin as Mata v. Hull earlier this week,” says Zoltan Toszegi. “(But I do agree with bias for the attacking team.)”
Oh crikey, I missed that. There have been a few such incidents lately, though overall you have to say assistant refereeing has improved ever so slightly.
Half-time reading
Half time: Leicester 0-1 Chelsea
Peep peep! Chelsea just about deserve to lead in a good if relatively uneventful game. Marcos Alonso’s classy early goal is the difference at the moment. See you in 10 minutes for more fun and games.
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43 min Pedro misses an excellent chance to make it 2-0. It came from a training-ground free-kick, with David Luiz dummying to shoot before fizzing the ball into Hazard in the D. He played it first time through to Pedro, who sliced a left-footed shot high and wide from 15 yards. It was slightly behind him but he will still feel he should have troubled the official Premier League Shots on Target Statistician.
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42 min Courtois has dealt assertively with Fuchs’ long throws all night, and there’s another example. He is so impressive - and he’s still only 24, which is ridiculous given how good he is and what he has achieved. His quiet authority is a little reminiscent of Peter Shilton.
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39 min Just to reiterate: if it stays like this, crisis club Chelsea will be seven points clear and on a run of 14 wins in 15 league games.
36 min Chelsea are such a hard team to get through in central positions, with essentially five central defensive players - two in midfield and three at the back. All the more reason to give the ball to Albrighton and put a few crosses in. Just as I’m typing this guff, Vardy spins Cahill on the right wing and puts in a really dangerous low cross with his left foot. David Luiz stretches at the near post but then pulls his foot away, fearing an own goal, and Courtois reacts superbly to palm it clear.
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33 min “Quite clear where Leicester have been going wrong this season,” says Adam Hirst. “They just don’t have the same quality pitch, like a poor photocopy of 2015-16.
32 min Chelsea have calmed things down after that little Albrighton assault, and at the moment there is a sense of stalemate in the pattern of play, if not the actual score.
30 min Hazard plays a one-two with Kante and is clattered firmly but fairly by Huth in the box. He is such a threat as a No9, especially away from home.
26 min This is so much better from Leicester, who have started to bully Chelsea a little bit, particularly in midfield.
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24 min “Evening Rob,” says Simon McMahon. “Seeing as you’re the Ian Rush of live blogging, if indeed an offer from China that was too good to resist came your way, you could go for a season and if it didn’t work out the Guardian would always take you back. ‘It was like live blogging in a foreign country’ etc etc.”
It was a shock to the system: I always thought football was a universal language, etc. Also, you’ve confused Ian Rush with Carl Leaburn.
22 min Another beautiful right-wing delivery from Albrighton is cushioned by Matic and headed behind by Cahill. Nothing comes from the corner. Leicester should give the ball to Albrighton at every opportunity because, as Owen Hargreaves says on BT, he is putting on a clinic in how to cross a ball.
21 min Leicester have started to come into this game. Drinkwater’s dangerous cross is volleyed off Moses by David Luiz, who was trying to put it behind for a corner I think. That could have gone anywhere but luckily for Chelsea it ricocheted to safety.
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18 min That first Albrighton pass was similar to this one from David Beckham, except from an even deeper position.
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17 min This is better from Leicester. Drinkwater harasses Alonso and finds Albrighton, who lifts a fine cross towards the middle of the six-yard line. Chilwell leaps above Moses and flicks a header well wide of the far post. Moses did enough to make it difficult for Chilwell, who had to stretch to make contact and couldn’t get enough on the ball as a result.
16 min Albrighton, just inside his own half on the touchline, plays a magnificent curling pass around the Chelsea defence that just eludes Vardy in the box.
12 min Leicester are diligently defending their one-goal deficit, sitting deep and trying to play on the counter. A second Chelsea goal looks far more likely at the moment.
10 min “China here,” says Ian Copestake. “How much would it take for you to not publish emails from your mate Copestake?”
Hello China, nice to hear from you. I suppose my view would be that, well, China are certainly looking to develop their football, looking at their signings and their recruitment. If an opportunity came along I am contracted to the Guardian but I have to look at my long-term strategy of my career. How long can I last as a liveblogger? I have been at the Guardian 13 years. It’s been a wonderful 13 years. There is no offer on the table but if they made an offer it would be under consideration. But at the moment I still enjoy working for the Guardian.
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8 min That Musa shot aside, this has been an outstandingly authoritative start from Chelsea - so much so that it can only be a matter of minutes before the words “Diego Who?” are uttered in the banter style.
The goal came from a right-wing cross by Azpilicueta, which bounced around the box before falling to Hazard eight yards from goal. He showed superb awareness to ignore the shot, which Morgan would have blocked, and tee up Alonso with a calm square pass. It invited - demanded - a first-time shot and Alonso wrapped his right foot around the ball to belt a curler past Schmeichel. That was an excellent finish and a superb assist from Hazard: 99.94 per cent of players would have had a shot in that situation.
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GOAL! Leicester 0-1 Chelsea (Alonso 6)
What a start for Chelsea!
4 min “Costa is obviously good but he’s all wrong for the England game,” says Gavin Steele. “Hope he goes to China to be honest!”
Gavin may or may not be a Spurs/Arsenal/Liverpool/Manchester City/Manchester United fan.
2 min Leicester almost take the lead after 80 seconds! Musa stumbles through an unusually woolly challenge from Azpilicueta on the left of the box before hitting a shot from a tight angle that is beaten away by Courtois.
1 min Peep peep! Leicester kick off from left to right. They are in blue; Chelsea are wearing their black and grey away strip.
What do you make of this Diego Costa business? I suppose my view would be that, well, China are certainly looking to develop their football, looking at their signings and their recruitment. If an opportunity came along I am contracted to the Guardian but I have to look at my long-term strategy of my career. How long can I last as a liveblogger? I have been at the Guardian 13 years. It’s been a wonderful 13 years. There is no offer on the table but if they made an offer it would be under consideration. But at the moment I still enjoy working for the Guardian.
We’re having technical problems, and for once that’s not a euphemism. Apologies if you’ve had multiple posts inflicted on you. We’re working on it. I say ‘we’, I’m doing bugger all as I have no idea how to fix it. But somebody, somewhere is on the case.
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Preamble
Hello. Chelsea are in crisis: they’ve lost their last one Premier League games, their most important player wants to go to China and their lead at the top is down to four points. We jest, of course, but you know how it is in modern football: the Premier League Crisis Baton has been transported to the King Power Stadium, ready to be handed over at the final whistle if necessary.
Chelsea will play 38 league games this season; this feels like one of the most significant. If they display their usual defiance and win, they go seven points clear and quieten the burgeoning hysteria. If they lose, the back pages will be theirs for the next few days, and their next few league fixtures - Hull, Liverpool, Arsenal - will look fraught with peril.
Kick off is at 5.30pm.
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Team news
Leicester (3-5-2) Schmeichel; Morgan, Huth, Fuchs; Albrighton, Drinkwater, Ndidi, Mendy, Chilwell; Vardy, Musa.
Substitutes: King, Kapustka, Simpson, Okazaki, Zieler, Gray, Wasilewski.
Chelsea (3-4-3) Courtois; Azpilicueta, David Luiz, Cahill; Moses, Kante, Matic, Alonso; Willian, Hazard, Pedro.
Substitutes: Begovic, Ivanovic, Fabregas, Zouma, Loftus-Cheek, Batshuayi, Chalobah.
Referee Andre Marriner.
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Rob will be here soon enough. Chelsea come up against a familiar face in Claudio Ranieri today, but here’s some expensive news relating to another former manager:
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