Leicester City 1 Chelsea 3: Mini mindset monsters
It was fitting that, on a day when the Government's immigration policy naturally led to an absence of punditry on Match of the Day, there was nothing much worth saying about Leicester City's latest defeat anyway.
Leicester didn't play badly. But it was more Mini mindset than mentality monsters again and Chelsea took full advantage. At least we could all sprint down to the local like lunatics to reassert our patriotism by necking a pint at closing time.
But this is no time or place to talk about… Spurs season ticket holders - let’s not be distracted from the real point at hand and right here, that’s the 16th league defeat of a miserable season. We go again.
Friends reunited
One of Ben Chilwell and Wesley Fofana was always going to score. It was Chilwell on this occasion, driving home at the near post before sliding on his knees and cupping his ears in front of what is the quietest part of the ground anyway.
Patson Daka fired home an impressive equaliser with his weaker foot but then the Amartey/Ward dream team sprung into action. First Amartey let Kai Havertz drift off the last line of defence to get on the end of Enzo Fernandez's lobbed through ball. Whether Ward could do anything about it was immaterial. He didn't even try.
There were certainly bright patches of play from a Leicester side that understandably looked to James Maddison for inspiration. But Chelsea kicked Maddison out of the game to complete disinterest from referee Andre Marriner and Chelsea scored again through Mateo Kovacic late on.
That killer blow ensured the final minutes were played out to half-hearted oles from the away end echoing around a half empty stadium. You could even forgive Maddison his inevitable post-match chinwag with Chilwell. We’ve got far more important things to worry about.
If there was one moment that encapsulated the season so far then it was glancing away from Wesley Fofana's celebratory in-game lap of the pitch to notice his replacement setting off on a more direct trajectory for the tunnel after being shown a red card.
Red-faced on the red carpet
Like a Cockney's award speech acceptance, we have to mention the misses. Amartey was the first culprit, glancing a header off-target from practically on the goal line. The second was Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall who mishit tamely to Kepa when there was only one player to beat on the line, which wasn't Kepa.
Personally I felt a bit sorry for Dewsbury-Hall who seemed to signal his responsibility for the miss when trudging round the pitch after the final whistle. But that's not the kind of execution that keeps a team in the Premier League.
Chelsea's third goal didn't arrive until the 78th minute. Dewsbury-Hall would have equalised with that chance had he been able to steer it goalwards but that's not something we do in the second half of games.
Remarkably, this Leicester City side haven't scored a single equaliser or winning goal in the second half of a game so far this season. For a team that's meant to be showing some fight to stay in the division, it's not a great sign.
Neither is the fact we're losing every week. Losing this game felt inevitable, as did the recent matches against Manchester United and Arsenal. And when you conspire to lose against Southampton as well, soon you run out of games that feel winnable.
But Chelsea are only tenth. They'd lost as many games as they'd won before yesterday. Brentford are ninth and lost at Everton. How confident are you that we'll beat them too?
Apathy in the UK
It's no wonder apathy is setting in. As the pathetic Marriner brought proceedings to a close, I was the only person on my row for ten seats in either direction. It was the same all over the stadium. There were huge swathes of people who simply got up and left before the end.
This is what happens when you keep a manager whose tenure came to a natural end months ago and you keep playing players who have proven time and again that they're not good enough.
But again, this wasn't a terrible performance. It was careless at both ends of the pitch - it wasn't calamitous. These players are capable and it might be unrealistic to demand that they beat a team assembled with a blank chequebook but if you look at pure ability, it isn't unrealistic to expect them to win games against weaker opposition.
After the trip to Brentford and the sweet release of an international break, six of the next seven games are against teams in the bottom half.
If we go down, we'll deserve it.
