Chelsea travelled to Yorkshire on Wednesday evening to face a Leeds United team fighting for survival towards the bottom of the Premier League standings.
Following the disappointments of the previous weekend and weeks, Chelsea began the game with great determination and urgency and were shortly rewarded with Mason Mount superbly picking out the top corner within five minutes.
Mount almost increased our advantage five minutes later, but this time he went low and, while he beat the goalie, he did not beat the defender on the six-yard line who made the block.
Leeds entered the game after the first quarter-hour, but then shot themselves in the foot by attempting to take Mateo Kovai’s foot off the ground: Dan James received a straight red for a reckless challenge that caught Kova high on the ankle of his planted leg — and knocking Kova out of the game.
Soon after, Chelsea had the ball in the back of the net, but Lukaku was (rightly) ruled offside, cancelling out a wonderful chipped finish. As Chelsea settled into our numerical dominance, Lukaku and Pulisic both came close to expanding our lead, but we would enter the interval with one goal (and one man) ahead.
The second half was more of the same, with the important difference being Pulisic’s goal around 10 minutes into the time, which pretty well decided the game, even considering recent faults and strange gifts and blunders. Lukaku also came close to scoring a number of times before ultimately getting on the scoresheet in the closing 10 minutes.
