Raheem Sterling launched his Chelsea career with a masterful second-half effort that propelled 10-man Blues to victory over Leicester.
Both teams entered the game coming off of disappointing losses the weekend before. Thomas Tuchel, who was compelled to watch from the stands due to his touchline ban, adjusted his formation in response.
FULL-TIME Chelsea 2-1 Leicester
10-man Chelsea went 2-0 up through Raheem Sterling’s brace and survive Leicester’s late fightback#CHELEI pic.twitter.com/0lfzzpnHD5
— Premier League (@premierleague) August 27, 2022
However, those carefully crafted preparations appeared to be in jeopardy when Conor Gallagher was dismissed after less than 30 minutes.
However, Sterling scored both his first and second Chelsea goals to lift the mood at a nervous Stamford Bridge. Harvey Barnes quickly hit back for the Foxes, but the home side were able to hold on and move back into the top half of the Premier League.
Chelsea has recovered from their unexpected 3-0 loss to Leeds in their previous match. They have moved up to sixth place in the standings, while Leicester remains winless through four games and are still in the bottom three.
What Did Tuchel Say?
Despite seeing his team hold on for victory, Tuchel was in no mood to let Gallagher off the hook after the match, saying: “Today he is responsible for what he did and he knows this was a huge mistake.
“It’s a very, very bad decision from Conor and of course he’s upset – everyone was upset because it almost killed the whole match.”
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Tuchel also aimed criticism at his team as a whole for allowing a corner to be turned into a Leicester counter-attack, which led to Gallagher’s second yellow card.
He said: “It’s not purely his fault, It’s sloppy how we take set pieces at the moment – we lack belief and we lack precision.
“It’s not good enough how we take set pieces and on top of it we give chances away and are sloppy in the coverage, we are bad in decision-making.
“We have to stop this immediately. We are on this with the team and I don’t know why it happened again.”
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