New and exciting ways to lose: Chelsea 2 Leicester City 1 (27 August 2022)
Is it another worrying sign for Leicester City - finding new and exciting ways to lose? Or are we just happy to have had a few shots? Forgive the doom-mongering but until we pick up our first win of the season, it's tempting to settle on the former.
In fact, this wasn't new as much as lovingly restored. It felt like a throwback to the majority of the 2014/15 season, when we seemingly went 2-0 down every week before registering a consolation goal despite a stirring finish. If this really is a straight repeat, then let's fast forward to April and enjoy the following 13 months.
But let’s be frank. As with last week, we should have won this game, never mind losing it.
Out of nowhere
Leicester pitched up at Stamford Bridge with a classic final-game-of-the-transfer-window lineup, three-fifths of a packed midfield having been halfway out the exit door all summer. You get the feeling Brendan Rodgers may have turned to Dennis Praet or Boubakary Soumare marginally more often if he rated either of them in the slightest, but here they were entrusted with important starting roles out of nowhere.
The other two midfield men, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Harvey Barnes, sent Conor Gallagher packing within the half hour for the most blatant pair of yellow cards you could imagine. Regardless of all Leicester's other issues, nobody wants to see Barnes or Dewsbury-Hall running at them. Gallagher certainly didn't fancy it, first taking out Dewsbury-Hall during a relatively innocuous run down the left before panicking at a potential clean run through for Barnes from well inside the Leicester half. The first was naive, the second far more so.
Barnes then thought he'd prompted an unlikely goal from a corner only to be penalised for holding Edouard Mendy. It was reminiscent of the two disallowed goals at Brighton last season in that Barnes was naive for thinking he'd get away with it. While he often feels too nice in open play, give us a corner and suddenly the Countesthorpe Cruyff is a master of the dark arts.
As a neutral, you'd have been thrilled with an early Chelsea red because, prior to Gallagher's red, Leicester were conservative to say the least. It was the perfect way to level the game up. Unfortunately, referee Paul Tierney decided he'd set the bar with those cards and decided to continue dishing them out indiscriminately. That meant a stop-start end to the half.
The return of Youri Tielemans was a major talking point, with just five days left in the transfer window and one or two clubs hovering. In the space of a couple of minutes towards the end of the first half, we saw the best and worst of the Belgian.
First he gave the ball away on the edge of our area, eventually leading to a Reece James shot against the woodwork. Then he played a delicious lofted through ball for Jamie Vardy, who dragged his shot wide when clear of the Chelsea defence. With the final action of the first half, a flowing move threatened to set up Timothy Castagne for a simple finish at the back post but Mendy came out quickly to block.
A new kind of pressure
At half time, there was a sense that, with James continuing to maraud down the right despite his side being reduced to ten, Leicester would have a chance to exploit the space in behind if Dewsbury-Hall was able to patrol James and allow Barnes freedom in the other direction.
This is Leicester though. The second half had barely started when Chelsea went in front, Marc Cucurella afforded his own personal acre down the left to pick out Raheem Sterling. Daniel Amartey then stood off Sterling before deflecting the England man's effort into the top corner beyond Danny Ward.
It was typically lacklustre defending. Not for the first time this season, it felt like the opposition hadn't had to do much to score.
Ten minutes into the second half, off went Soumare and Praet to be replaced by Ayoze Perez and Kelechi Iheanacho.
It felt like a new kind of pressure had arrived. If you're not going to win at home to weak teams, and you're not going to win when you're 1-0 up, and you're not going to win when your opponents go down to ten men after 27 minutes, it doesn't leave many scenarios to inspire confidence. Chelsea away or not, this had to be seen as an opportunity.
There was immediately a greater threat from the more attacking lineup with Iheanacho setting up Barnes for a shot off target. Unfortunately the overall balance just wasn't there and suddenly, with two central midfielders replaced by two attackers, huge gaps opened up all over the pitch. Jorginho had space. James had space. Sterling arrived to finish from a yard out. It was the kind of goal you could see coming from the halfway line, even with our defence seemingly set and the opposition a man light.
Chance after chance
Barnes, often the most direct threat and sorely missed in those first two games of the season, pulled a goal back following a neat one-two with Vardy. Chelsea were beginning to look ragged and, with Perez and Iheanacho working in the space between the home side's defence and midfield, the Leicester threat was sustained. Tielemans was orchestrating the game, hiding in his favourite position deep in the right side of central midfield and releasing Castagne at will.
Barnes had a shot saved by Mendy at his near post, sandwiched by two wastefully weak Iheanacho efforts. In a repeat of his first half miss, Vardy wasted another one-on-one created by a Tielemans chip over the Chelsea backline. This time he decided to round Mendy only to fire into the side netting.
It began to feel like, despite the sheer number of good chances, it simply wasn't going to happen. Perez hit the underside of the bar. A clever Barnes flick threatened a chance for Iheanacho. A succession of poorly-taken corners came and went.
Quite why there were only four minutes of stoppage time despite numerous goals, substitutions and stoppages, we'll never know. But that's the last resort of the one-eyed. We wasted this game. It was frustrating. It was infuriating. It was all extremely on brand.
Where do we go from here?
With Wesley Fofana deciding not to get the team bus back to Leicester and St Etienne taking a chunk of the resulting proceeds, we’ve got £55 million or so burning a hole in our pocket. Centre-back. Right-winger. Central midfielder. Job done. It’s never going to be that simple though, is it?
Let’s just be grateful to see the back of this godforsaken transfer window and hopefully take some chances in our next game. Manchester United are the lucky club to be quaking in their boots.
