{"id":1071,"date":"2026-04-26T16:17:27","date_gmt":"2026-04-26T16:17:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=1071"},"modified":"2026-04-26T16:17:27","modified_gmt":"2026-04-26T16:17:27","slug":"chelsea-1-0-leeds","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/?p=1071","title":{"rendered":"Chelsea 1 – 0 Leeds"},"content":{"rendered":"


\n<\/p>\n

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Chelsea immediately returned to winning ways after Liam Rosenior’s exit, booking a FA Cup final clash with Man City with a 1-0 victory over Leeds at Wembley.<\/p>\n

Rosenior slammed his players for an “unacceptable” performance in their 3-0 defeat at Brighton on Tuesday which ultimately ended his tenure a day later. But they were transformed in this semi-final on Sunday, managing the big-stage occasion with authority.<\/p>\n

Incredibly, interim boss Calum McFarlane now has the opportunity to beat Pep Guardiola in a major final on May 16. What a way that would be to save Chelsea’s season.<\/p>\n

Chelsea failed to score in the five-game losing streak in the Premier League which cost Rosenior but it took them just 23 minutes to hit the net against Leeds.<\/p>\n

\n
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Chelsea FA Cup finalists – again!<\/h4>\n<\/p>\n

Chelsea have now reached a sixth FA Cup final in the past 10 years.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Typically, it was Enzo Fernandez – left out for two games this month by Rosenior after comments about a potential summer move away from Chelsea – who ended the drought.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Enzo\n <\/div>
\n Image:<\/span>
\n Enzo Fernandez heads Chelsea in front
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

The Argentina international, wearing the captain’s armband, had looked like a man on a mission from the first whistle and expertly headed in Pedro Neto’s cross to give Chelsea the lead.<\/p>\n

There had been big chances at both ends before then, with Robert Sanchez sticking out his right foot to brilliantly stop Brenden Aaronson converting from Dominic Calvert-Lewin’s fine flick through, while Joao Pedro blasted against the near post from a Fernandez pass moments before the opener.<\/p>\n

Leeds tried to open up the contest further in the second half, switching to a back four, but after Sanchez made another impressive stop to keep out a rocket from sub Anton Stach, Chelsea set about disrupting the rhythm.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\n \"Leeds\n <\/div>
\n Image:<\/span>
\n Leeds United’s Ethan Ampadu (left) and Chelsea’s Romeo Lavia clash during a drinks break
\n <\/span>
\n <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

One incident in particular had Leeds fans raging. Sanchez went down asking for treatment, allowing McFarlane to issue instructions to Fernandez. Sanchez, unsurprisingly, was fine to continue.<\/p>\n

The game management from Chelsea limited Leeds’ prospects of forcing a late equaliser and ended their seven-game unbeaten streak. They must now quickly turn their attentions back to the Premier League relegation battle.<\/p>\n

While they have been focused on the cup this weekend, Leeds’ gap to the bottom three has closed to six points. They host relegated Burnley on Friday. <\/strong><\/p>\n

Chelsea still have work to do in the league, too. They must keep themselves in the hunt for Champions League qualification. But a tumultuous season could yet still end with silverware back here at Wembley next month.<\/p>\n

More to follow…<\/em><\/p>\n

What’s coming up?<\/h3>\n<\/p><\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Chelsea immediately returned to winning ways after Liam Rosenior’s exit, booking a FA Cup final…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1071","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1071"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1071\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/1072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1071"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1071"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/playball.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1071"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}