The first 45 minutes at Wembley decided the FA Cup semi-final between Chelsea and Leeds United. Heading into the game, many thought the Whites had the upper hand.
Chelsea had lost midweek, and their coach had been sacked. Interim boss Calum McFarlane had less than three days in charge of the team to prepare them for the semi-final. But the Blues’ game plan worked. McFarlane explained that they knew Leeds would press in the game and exploited it:
“We wanted to be really clear in the way we set up against Leeds. We knew that they were going to think we were vulnerable, and they were going to come for us early in the game.”
A long ball from the back, beat the press and Pascal Struijk lost a duel, leaving Pedro Neto free to find Enzo Fernandez in the box with a cross.
Ally McCoist slams Chelsea for Wembley antics
That first half was very key in deciding the result; Brenden Aaronson squandered a huge chance when he was through on goal. He fired a shot which was well read by Robert Sanchez. The Whites went into half-time a goal down, with Farke making changes at half-time. This injected some pace and urgency in the second half of the game.
But when Chelsea were under a bit of pressure, Robert Sanchez went down with an apparent injury. And when he was receiving treatment, some Blues players went to receive instructions from McFarlane on the touchline. This incident was criticized by many after the game, with calls for referees to stop these disruptions.
Ally McCoist is the latest to add his voice to the situation. He refused to call what Chelsea did as ”cheating” but said it has no place in the game:
“I wouldn’t use the word clever, but it is certainly not cheating either.” he said on talkSPORT.
“It’s somewhere in the middle, I don’t like it.”
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Disruptions helped decide the result
That break in the second half all but killed the momentum Daniel Farke’s side had. After the game resumed, Leeds were flat and did not have that attacking edge anymore. They did manage to create a few decent chances, but they failed to make them count. Calvert-Lewin had a free header, but failed to direct it past the keeper. What these teams do with players faking injury is not time-wasting, it is deliberately deceiving the match officials. The FA must do something to stamp this out before it becomes common practice.
Well now, Manchester city and now Chelsea. The Chelsea one was so blatant the keeper was spoken to by his own player, 2 seconds later down he goes. How to stop the cheating?Take the keeper off the field like they do with the outfield players. Leeds went down to 10 men recently when the referee told our player he needed to go off even thoe the physio hadn’t been on and no treatment given. To make yesterday’s cheating worse was the Chelsea players laying hands on Ampadu. Now if the game wasn’t stopped then a Red card would have been shown. If they can go back and check Calvert-Lewin touching the neck of the Chelsea player. Who I must say looked like he’d been shot with the reaction. Then laying on of hands and shoving a player should be the same thing. Unless the FA and Premier League grow a… Read more »