So has Frank Lampard done the right thing by dropping the increasingly uncertain Kepa? The keeper’s save percentage this season is a Mignoletesque 55.56%, by some distance the worst in the Premier League. The next name on the list is Jordan Pickford, England’s number one, ladies and gentlemen, who has done his fair share of clowning around recently but has still managed to stop 63.92% of the shots sent his way. So the answer would surely have to be yes. Of course Willy Caballero could let one dribble through his legs today, in which case Lampard’s post-match press conference will be reasonably entertaining, but you can only go on the numbers we have right now.
Chelsea boss Frank Lampard talks. “Leicester are a very good team. They’re above us, so it’s a tight game, a bit of a match-up. They do a lot of good things and we try to do the same, so we need to be really competitive today. Goalkeeper is a decision you don’t take lightly, you have to look at what it means. I trust in Willy, he’s a great professional. I trust in them both, but this is a decision I’ve made for today.”
Some updated Leicester team news. Wilfred Ndidi has failed a fitness test on his knee, so is replaced in the starting XI by Hamza Choudhury as a precaution. Demarai Gray fills Choudhury’s place on the bench.
Just the one change to the Leicester CIty team beaten by Aston Villa in the League Cup midweek. Jamie Vardy is back, replacing Kelechi Iheanacho up front.
Chelsea by contrast make six changes to the XI named for the FA Cup tie at Hull last weekend. Marcos Alonso, Kurt Zouma, Fikayo Tomori, Ross Barkley, Mateo Kovacic and Michy Batshuayi make way for Reece James, Antonio Rudiger, Andreas Christensen, N’Golo Kante, Jorginho and Tammy Abraham. Incidentally, Frank Lampard has clearly lost patience with the increasingly hapless Kepa, who doesn’t regain his place having been benched for the cup.
The teams
Leicester City: Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell,
Choudhury, Perez, Maddison, Tielemans, Barnes, Vardy.
Ndidi
Subs: Justin,
Gray, Albrighton, Ward, Iheanacho, Praet, Fuchs.
Choudhury
Chelsea: Caballero, James, Christensen, Rudiger, Azpilicueta, Kante, Jorginho, Mount, Hudson-Odoi, Abraham, Pedro.
Subs: Arrizabalaga, Alonso, Barkley, Willian, Kovacic, Batshuayi, Tomori.
Referee: Lee Mason (Lancashire).
Updated
Preamble
Matches between Leicester and Chelsea have, in the past, done for some big names. Jose Mourinho, for example, who started yammering on about betrayal after his Chelsea side meekly handed their title to the Foxes in December 2015, earning himself the sack, quick-smart. Then there was Danny Baker, who responded to referee Mike Reed’s award of a penalty for Chelsea after a non-existent Leicester challenge in a 1997 FA Cup tie by lambasting the hapless official on Radio Five Live with trademark eloquence:
Football has a maggot at its golden core, and that maggot is referees … we’ve been at that game for two hours and the referee was bad all the way through it … what is the point of people running themselves to a standstill, what is the point supporters investing time money and emotion, what is the point in anyone investing millions in football when the whole thing rests on some erstwhile van driver from Folkestone who’s probably had a row with his wife? If this was a boxing match and the referee turned round and gave the fight to the bloke who was knocked out on the floor we would say you can’t do that … most of them need a good slap round the face … hacks should doorstep this man like he’s a member of Oasis … that worm should be on the phone now, Radio Five should be knocking down that ref’s dressing room and [asking] do you know on behalf of all referees how bad you are?
Marvellous. Of course, Baker was turfed out his ear a few days later by some craven BBC suit or other, but that’s middle management for you.
Will this latest meeting of
Pensioners and Foxes result in a similarly memorable brouhaha? We’ll soon find out, as third take on fourth. It’s on!
Talent and Clowns
Kick off: 12.30pm GMT.
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