The Fosse Way

Leicester City taking on Chelsea in the FA Cup has a fairly familiar feel. The 2021 final aside, our record isn’t great but the Foxes were well represented at Stamford Bridge, totalling 6000 in number. Adam Hodges was there to report on this quarter-final tie.

That sense of being so near, yet so far, leaves you with mixed feelings. Regret that an opportunity has been missed but hope that more can be achieved. This felt more acute for Leicester City when leaving Stamford Bridge on Sunday afternoon after the 4-2 defeat, a scoreline that flattered the Premier League ‘stars’ of Chelsea.

After several trains back to north London where my car awaited to take us back up the M1, my wife said: “Look, there’s the Wembley Arch”. I lifted my head and saw the prize that had slipped out of our hands – an FA Cup semi-final played at the home of football since neutral venues have been done away with since 2007.

“Who knows, we still might be going to Wembley this season,” I remarked. My wife looked puzzled, but I shrugged my shoulders and said, “stranger things have happened”. It’s been a season full of them after all as a Leicester City fan.

A strong showing on and off the pitch 

Sunday was the latest chapter in a season that feels more like a marathon than a sprint; where the FA Cup had turned from a chance to rest key players, to an opportunity to earn silverware, and a game or two under the arch. 

Enzo Maresca rewarded players who had performed well in earlier rounds with starts for Jakub Stolarczyk and Callum Doyle. It was great to see Wilfred Ndidi return to the starting line-up, he was joined by Patson Daka who came in for the injured Jamie Vardy. 

Leicester had enjoyed the underdog label against Bournemouth in the Fourth Round and would be the underdogs again but only by league status. The sense amongst the huge travelling Blue Army was that Chelsea were there for the taking after a pretty underwhelming season so far which has seen manager Mauricio Pochettino take flak from his own fans (Editor’s note: he copped more today, their fans booing substitutions and generally discontent was fascinating to see given it wasn’t us for a change).

The day promised a lot and it began with a very soggy trip down the M1. Earlier this week Facebook gave me a nice memory of the video I recorded of the roar that greeted the players ahead of the Sevilla Champions League second leg at the King Power.

Sitting next to me that day was my old mate who has been a City fan as long as I have who now lives in north London. For this year’s FA Cup Quarter Final he would accompany me again, hoping for similar success, along with my wife. With travel pretty tough for all from Leicester, between train cancellations and road closures, it was a drive to north London and we got the tube to Stamford Bridge. 

After getting off at Westminster we took the District line to Fulham Broadway and the platform was full of expectant fans. When boarding the heavily rammed carriages, I asked my friend if it’s usually like this as this was my first away game in the capital. “Typical!” was the reply. 

After eight tube stops we arrived and our eyes blinked after emerging underground to see the Bridge. We made our way around to the Shed End Upper Tier and had no problems getting into the ground. The concourse itself is very narrow and was made worse when trying to collect food and drink from the kiosks after paying on a self-service screen similar to those at the King Power. Probably not helped by just how many Foxes fans there were.

A familiar tale of two halves

As the ground began to fill so did the expectation – could we match Chelsea with Maresca-Ball? The game started brightly enough with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Stephy Mavididi linking up well. But it was further back in the left channel that Leicester looked vulnerable with Mykhylo Mudryk working Callum Doyle hard to the byline. 

It was down our left again that Chelsea broke in the 13th minute with Nicolas Jackson working Jannik Vestergaard into the box and rolling it across the six-yard box for Marc Cucurella to tap in. Hamza Choudhury, everybody on our right-side actually, were caught ball watching and Cucurella was left wide open with the simplest of jobs to put the home side ahead. 

Chelsea pushed for a second and Abdul Fatawu found himself on the wrong side of Raheem Sterling in the box, bringing him down to give away a penalty. It was Sterling who took the responsibility but tamely struck his penalty kick, allowing Stolarczyk to save. It was a mixed performance from Sterling who also chose to shoot wide when he was one-on-one with the Leicester keeper. And let’s not forget that free-kick but more on that later.

My friend asked me how I felt the game was going and I said, “let’s just see out the half” and not let any other goals in. The board went up for three minutes stoppage time but it was three minutes too long as Sterling broke into the box and passed it across for Cole Palmer to double the score. Not the ideal time to concede and it was given away cheaply again too.

Game over? Not quite. Leicester’s first half lacked intensity but Maresca’s men came out in the second half with purpose and chased down balls with more regularity, Patson Daka pressing Axel Disasi after a Chelsea throw-in. Disasi’s inexplicable back pass was worthy of A Question of Sport’s ‘What Happened Next’ section as he curled the ball 25 yards past the helpless Sánchez (wandering weirdly far out of his goal for some reason) and into the net. 

Hope turned into belief and Leicester moved the ball forward with more intent as Dewsbury-Hall, the standout for the Foxes, broke through the middle and passed out wide to Mavididi who jinked inside and scored with a right footed strike. It was a beautiful way to level the game. The away end got to celebrate wildly.

Hands up who’d missed VAR? Anybody?

Leicester were turning it on and showing the hunger to go on and win the tie. But then everything turned on its head. The ball broke through the soft underbelly of Leicester’s centre and Callum Doyle, our last man, brought Jackson down on the edge of the box. Referee Andy Madley thought it was a penalty and worthy of a yellow card. VAR saw it as a free kick worthy of a red card – makes sense, right? 

Similar to the Coventry away match in the league, a sending off changed the game and all the focus switched to trying to see the game out to extra time and maybe trying to hang on to penalties. It wasn’t to be, however. 

With fresh legs on the pitch the Chelsea substitutes of Chukwuemeka and Madueke would go on to score in stoppage time to send Chelsea through to the next round and Leicester out of the Cup. So close, yet so far.

Leicester did themselves proud though on a day where they matched Chelsea, and bettered them, for parts of the second half. Yet we are now out of a competition which will likely be won by the blue side of Manchester unless anybody can stop them.

Time to focus on the league again. On the drive back up the M1 my wife read out the Leeds score with the West Yorkshire team now knocking us off the summit of the Championship on goal difference until at least after the international break.

Just one point separates the top three now, with us having a game in hand, albeit to Southampton. Will we be going to Wembley after all in the form of the play-off final on Sunday 26 May? Maybe. Should we be excited – I’m unsure.