It was a somewhat shaky start for the Blues and Leeds United had an early chance to take the lead, but thankfully Brendan Aaronson’s finish on the 1-v-1 counter lacked the quality to beat Robert Sánchez, who produced a solid kick save to preserve the game’s goalless status.
Chelsea were starting to settle in by then, finding some joy by going long rather than always insisting on building from the back, and able to put together some pretty good passing moves on either flank. It was from one of those
that we would take the lead, Pedro Neto picking out Enzo Fernández, who lost his man and nodded in expertly.
The goal gave Chelsea the confidence to take control of proceedings, though we were unable to add to our lead before the halftime whistle.
The teams traded chance to score to begin the second half, with Anton Stach stinging the palms of an unsighted Sánchez and João Pedro unable to get his shot away from inside the six at the end of a wonderfully flowing passing combination.
But Leeds were dialing up their pressure and were starting to cause problems more consistently, both in and out of possession. Sánchez was called into critical action again as Calvert-Lewin found space for a header, as we started to sag back a bit too much, trying to see out the narrowest of wins.
To our credit, we were able to reverse the trend for a short while with about 15 minutes to go, before Leeds dialed things back up for their final push.
But contrary to recent trends and expectations, we would preserve our clean sheet fairly comfortably, and reach our latest FA Cup final.
Carefree.
- Just a couple changes from midweek, with JP in for Delap, Tosin in for Hato, and Garnacho coming in to give us two actual wingers
- Enzo’s 13th goal of the season
- Palmer at right wing after coming on, Neto switching right to left (Enzo staying central)
- Massive concern about Caicedo’s left knee for a hot minute there towards the end, but was able to finish out the game
- Chelsea’s “engineered timeout” on 60 minutes was amusing, as was everyone’s outrage at it
- Next up: Forest away on May the 4th; may need the Force to be with us indeed
- KTBFFH
