Leicester City 2-0 Chelsea: Five Things We Learned

Leicester City claimed top spot in the Premier League on Tuesday evening with a comprehensive 2-0 victory against Chelsea.

Wilfred Ndidi gave the Foxes a dream start with a fantastic goal from range in just the sixth minute of the game. The Blues thought they had received a penalty just before half-time for a Jonny Evans trip on Christian Pulisic but VAR chalked that off. The Foxes then compounded that misery with Maddison doubling the hosts’ advantage.

Here are five things we learned from the King Power Stadium:

Magical Maddison

Maddison is really in a sparkling vein of form for Leicester City at the current time. In his last eight Premier League games, the English midfielder has scored five and provided a further two.

He’s also beaten his entire goals contribution from the entirety of the last campaign. If he can keep up that electric form then there is no reason as to why he couldn’t carry Leicester into the UEFA Champions League and also find himself in the England squad for Euro 2020.

Foxes correct home form

One of the main aspects that had been holding Leicester back thus far throughout the season is their home form. That is understandable considering that of the team’s five defeats in the league, four of them have come on home soil.

However, they are now three undefeated at the King Power Stadium. Two of those games have even been back-to-back wins just this week against Southampton and now the Blues. Now that Brendan Rodgers has rectified his team’s home form, they are now looking a formidable outfit.

Chelsea goals dry up

It is certainly well broadcast that Chelsea are on a pretty poor run of form but their main problem recently has been finding the back of the net. In their last five games, the Blues have only found the net on four occasions – they just simply are not threatening enough.

That poor form continued at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday with Lampard’s men racking up just 0.62 expected goals throughout the 90 minutes – their second lowest number of the campaign. Considering the amount of money that they spent on attacking options throughout the summer, that really is poor.

Mount the only shining light

Despite the defeat and their poor form in front of goal, the Blues can take one crumb of comfort from the game and that is that Mason Mount continued his good form.

After scoring the winner against Fulham last time out, the English midfielder was the shining light for the Blues. He had one of the best past accuracies in the Londoners’ entire starting XI, whilst also producing the most key passes of any player on the pitch with four.

He also put in a tremendous defensive performance with eight tackles and four interceptions. It goes without saying then that Mount may have felt slightly unfortunate to have ended up on the losing side.

Leicester contenders?

The win against Chelsea takes Leicester top of the league. Whilst it could be a short stay with Manchester United facing Fulham on Wednesday evening, the Foxes are full value for the title as leaders.

Brendan Rodgers has his Foxes firing and they have now beaten the likes of Manchester City, Tottenham Hotspur, Arsenal and Chelsea this season, whilst securing a valiant point against Ole Gunnar Solskjaer’s Red Devils just after Christmas Day. Those type of results are most certainly a mark of a team that should be challenging the UEFA Champions League places and even the league title. The Foxes can now be backed at a price as low as narrow as 20/1 with William Hill to lift their second Premier League crown this season.

Match Report

Leicester City: Schmeichel (7); Castagne (7), Evans (6), Fofana (7), Justin (7); Ndidi (7), Tielemans (7), Maddison (8) (Perez (N/A), 76′); Albrighton (7) (Pereira (N/A), 77′), Barnes (7), Vardy (6) (Iheanacho (N/A), 88′).

Chelsea: Mendy (6); Chilwell (5), Rudiger (5), Silva (6), James (5); Kovacic (5), Mount (6), Havertz (5) (Ziyech (5), 67′); Pulisic (5), Hudson-Odoi (5) (Werner (6), 68′), Abraham (5).

Goals: Ndidi (6′), Maddison (41′)

Referee: Craig Pawson

Yellow Cards: Havertz (29′), Kovacic (51′), Fofana (85′), Ziyech (89′)

Red Cards: N/A