LEICESTER 2-2 CHELSEA
- Goals: Harvey Barnes (£5.9m), Ben Chilwell (£5.6m) | Antonio Rudiger (£6.0m) x2
- Assists: Youri Tielemans (£6.2m) x2 | Mason Mount (£6.1m) x2
- Bonus Points: Rudiger x3, Mount x2, Tielemans x1
Harvey Barnes (£5.9m) continues to mark himself out as a tantalising differential ahead of a great run of Foxes fixtures from Gameweek 28.
The Leicester midfielder scored his third consecutive league goal with a deflected effort against Chelsea and now has four attacking returns in as many Premier League outings.
Owned by just 0.9% of managers at time of writing, he could be the way to invest in the Foxes’ attack moving forward.
However, Barnes’ tendency to shoot rather than find a team-mate could be a worry for owners of Jamie Vardy (£9.9m).
The striker returned from a glute injury to lead the Leicester line but drew a blank at the King Power stadium.
That was partly down to Barnes, who shot wide in the 80th minute after an excellent Vardy cross along the ground which left just Willy Caballero (£4.8m) between the Leicester winger and a brace – robbing Vardy of an assist.
While the premium forward might be on the chopping block for many, he was only second to Barnes for expected goal involvement (xGI) in the early GW25 kick-off.
On that missed opportunity, Brendan Rodgers lamented:
It was a great move, a brilliant pass by Jamie. [Barnes] was onside and he’s in really good form at the minute.
He shapes his body great – it was actually one of Frank Lampard’s finishes, breaking into the box and just finishing – but I couldn’t quite believe it went past the post, so that was a great opportunity for us.
[We had] clear chances and we’re very pleased that we could be that creative, but defensively disappointed with the ones we conceded.
After a goal-less first half, this game sparked into life after Antonio Rudiger (£6.0m) opened the scoring immediately after the interval.
The centre-back put Chelsea into the lead from a Mason Mount (£6.1m) corner and also levelled the game via a free-kick from the same team-mate.
Meanwhile, after Barnes had scored, Ben Chilwell (£5.6m) took advantage of a Caballero mistake to put Leicester in front for a brief period.
Lampard agreed with Rodgers’ line of thinking that Leicester could have put the game beyond Chelsea in the second half. Asked if his team had been let off the hook, the Blues boss responded:
Yeah (we were). But I also feel we had as good a chance with Tammy in the first half from Reece James’ cross where he is there and didn’t get anything on it.
(There was a) couple of bits around their box. For instance the Chilwell goal, we had a similar situation to that two or three times in the first half where we didn’t score. They evened themselves out over the game.
Chelsea were the more dominant side in the opening 30 minutes but either the final pass or shot seemed to go awry for Lampard’s charges.
Callum Hudson-Odoi (£5.3m) was heavily involved going forward, with the winger seeing a Cesar Azpilicueta (£5.8m) cross go through his legs inside the box after four minutes.
Tammy Abraham (£7.7m) – playing through the pain barrier – then got his feet mixed up inside the area after more good work from left-back Azpilicueta.
Yeah (I’ve cleared Abraham to play). Sometimes you have to play with a bit of pain.
The type of injury it is, it’s not a muscle injury so you’d hope it’s pain he can deal with and there’s no worries about what might come. – Frank Lampard
Moments later, Abraham was inches away from connecting with a wonderful Reece James (£5.0m) cross.
The biggest FPL moment of the first half came on 24 minutes when Leicester’s high press saw Ayoze Perez (£6.2m) use his shoulder to find Vardy in the area.
The striker took a touch before striking the ball straight at the on-rushing Caballero with his left foot.
After Rudiger opened the scoring – with a soft goal from a Leicester defensive standpoint – Barnes equalised via a deflected effort that looped over Caballero.
Kepa Arrizabalaga‘s (£5.5m) replacement then found himself way out of position after a Chilwell cross looped over his head.
Youri Tielemans (£6.2m) – who assisted Barnes’ opener – saw Chilwell convert his cross with a right-footed effort as Caballero scrambled back to no avail.
Frustratingly for Vardy owners, the forward was very close to being the player on the end of Tielemans’ delivery.
On the goalkeeper’s seeming error, Lampard said:
Not (his fault) in my opinion, no. As the ball travels – it is a mis-hit cross (from Chilwell) – he follows that and moves back towards his goal when he realises he couldn’t get it.
I think the problem was that when we defended we sunk to the six-yard box. Chilwell pops up with that and someone has to be tighter to them.
Despite Leicester’s dominance in the second period, they were undone by another set-piece as Rudiger looped a header over Kasper Schmeichel (£5.4m) from a Mount free-kick.
The Foxes were missing the presence of Wilfred Ndidi (£5.0m), who was replaced in the Leicester XI by Hamza Choudhury (£4.3m) after incurring a knee issue.
He’s felt a pain in his knee, he recently had an operation but was alright against Villa. We had him in to play but it’s become very sore.
Rather than him go out in the warm-up we thought we’d leave it. We don’t want any long-term problems. – Brendan Rodgers
The Foxes manager added on his side’s performance:
We’re disappointed not to have won the game. I thought we started both halves slow.
We should have won having gone 2-1 up. We gifted them two goals really, which we’re disappointed with. Our concentration and organisation wasn’t quick enough in one or two players. But what we did was show a fantastic mentality to come from behind against a really good side with top level players.
Against a top team it might be deemed a good result but we should win that game. But they’ve come from a tough game in midweek and battled to got a point.
These players are still learning and still young and there’s elements we will be better in going forward. It was a great fight today, we worked our way into the game with some real momets of quality and eventually played very well.
It’s been a long period form December. We’ll go away, come back and get back to being consistent.
Leicester XI (4-1-4-1): Schmeichel; Chilwell, Evans, Soyuncu, Ricardo Pereira; Choudhury; Barnes, Maddison, Tielemans (Praet 79′), Perez; Vardy (Iheanacho 80′).
Chelsea XI (4-2-3-1): Caballero; Azpilicueta, Christensen, Rudiger, James; Mount, Jorginho (Kovacic 74′), Kanté; Pedro (Willian 74′), Mount, Hudson-Odoi; Abraham (Barkley 82′).
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CRYSTAL PALACE 0-1 SHEFFIELD UNITED
- Own goals: Vicente Guaita (£5.1m)
- Assists: Oliver Norwood (£4.9m)
- Bonus Points: Dean Henderson (£5.0m) x3, Norwood x2, Jack O’Connell (£4.6m) x1, John Egan (£4.5m) x1
There was huge FPL news before this clash kicked off as news broke that John Lundstram (£5.1m) was benched for the away side.
Having already looked liable to be replaced by Muhamed Besic (£4.4m) in Chris Wilder’s XI, Lundstram instead lost his place to new signing Sander Berge (£5.0m). Besic, meanwhile, was not part of the Blades’ matchday squad.
Berge came close to immediately opening his Blades account, finding himself in a Lundstram-esque position in the box after three minutes.
However, the Norwegian just failed to connect with Oliver McBurnie‘s (££5.7m) knockdown.
This clash was otherwise a tale of two goalkeepers in fantasy terms, with Vicente Guaita (£5.1m) the villain of the piece.
In the 59th minute, the Palace stopper appeared to have a routine task to perform as Oliver Norwood (£4.9m) slightly overhit his corner.
But Guaita mixed up his angles, moving back over his own line as he caught the ball to gift Sheffield United a 1-0 lead.
On his number one’s error, Roy Hodgson said:
The goal was unfortunate because Guaita’s done so well for us this season. He’s made fantastic saves to keep us in games and get us three points at times.
It’s disappointing that he’s going to bear the brunt of the criticism. Everyone who watches the game tonight will say it was the goalkeeper’s fault. I’m sad for him because he doesn’t deserve that.
At the opposite end of the pitch, Dean Henderson (£5.0m) and the Blades’ defence picked up a ninth clean sheet of the season – though Lundstram was unable to reap those shut-out rewards.
The goalkeeper also made three saves and picked up maximum bonus points to earn a second consecutive double-figure haul.
The Blades netminder did have one iffy moment late in the first half as Wilfried Zaha (£6.8m) fired a low ball across goal that evaded Henderson – but no Palace player gambled for what would have been a tap-in.
That passage of play summed up the Eagles’ struggles in front of goal. Roy Hodgson’s men managed 13 shots at Selhurst Park but found the target with just three.
One of those was a James McArthur (£5.2m) effort inside the area that Henderson did well to keep out in the 63rd minute.
Joel Ward (£4.3m), who took the place of Martin Kelly (£4.4m) at right-back, saw a red card rescinded after 73 minutes.
George Baldock (£5.1m) picked up a 19th-minute yellow card for a foul on Zaha but managed to steer clear of the referee’s book for the remainder of the game.
His fellow wing-back Enda Stevens (£5.1m) had one shot saved after 80 minutes and put another wide soon after as the Blades looked to put the game beyond Palace, though neither side particularly impressed in attack on Saturday afternoon.
Wilder was delighted to see his team pick up another three points as his team went fifth in the table by 5pm on Saturday.
It’s a huge result today. We were up against some really good players but the team kept their discipline and shape.
We were lucky with the goal, but I thought we were good value for the win. We’re delighted to add another three points to the number we have already.
Palace have a habit of feeling their way into the game and coming on strongly in the second half, but they started very well. I felt we stuck in the game and managed to get a very valuable three points. – Chris Wilder
Crystal Palace XI (4-3-3): Guaita; Van Aanholt, Cahill, Tomkins, Ward; McArthur (Kouyaté 85′), Milivojevic, McCarthy (Meyer 80′); Zaha, Benteke (Townsend 77′), Ayew.
Sheffield United XI (3-5-2): Henderson; O’Connell, Egan, Basham; Stevens, Fleck, Norwood, Berge (Lundstram 68′), Baldock; McBurnie (Osborn 95′), Sharp (Mousset 64′).
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Gameweek 25 Match Reports
- Leicester City 2-2 Chelsea
- Bournemouth 2-1 Aston Villa
- Crystal Palace 0-1 Sheffield United
- Liverpool 4-0 Southampton
- Newcastle United 0-0 Norwich City
- Watford 2-3 Everton
- West Ham United 3-3 Brighton and Hove Albion
- Manchester United 0-0 Wolves
- Burnley v Arsenal
- Tottenham Hotspur v Manchester City
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