Chelsea 1-0 Leicester: Match report & 4 talking points from scratchy Blues win | OneFootball

FROM STAMFORD BRIDGE - Marc Cucurella's second-half strike earned Chelsea a narrow 1-0 victory at home to Leicester City on Sunday afternoon.

The hosts kept a clean sheet, earned a third straight win and moved above reigning champions Manchester City into the top four, but there was a hollow feeling to their error-strewn display.

Leicester won't exactly be heartened by dragging Chelsea down to their level and remain six points adrift of safety at the foot of the Premier League table.

Conditions were perfect at Stamford Bridge. A watery spring sun squirting across the pitch blunted the edge of March's typical chill, yet a flowing game of football struggled to break out. Less than two minutes had elapsed before there was the first of a maddening number of stoppages.

Luke Thomas managed to clumsily tangle with Cole Palmer and escape without further punishment but his teammate Victor Kristansen was not so fortunate, clearly tripping Jadon Sancho on the right-hand side of the penalty area midway through the first half. Palmer, usually a picture of unerring composure from 12 yards, had his low effort tipped past the post by Mads Hermansen.

Buoyed by the profligacy of their hosts - and a particularly vocal away end - Leicester forced the ball onto the bar within five minutes of the penalty. Patson Daka's forward surge sparked chaos in the Chelsea backline - a sense of unease returning goalkeeper Robert Sanchez was all too quick to amplify by wildly diving past Daka's cross which cannoned off Tosin Adarabioyo and onto the bar. Levi Colwill only just beat Jamie Vardy to the rebound.

The match belatedly settled into a pattern of sterile Chelsea possession strictly in front of Leicester's vaguely organised defensive rearguard. It took a crisply struck skidder from Cucurella on the hour mark, sending the ball fizzing between Wout Faes' legs and into the bottom corner, to break the deadlock.

Chelsea, led by an out-of-sorts Palmer, huffed and puffed without finding a nerve-settling second. Palmer was ultimately taken off with more than 15 minutes remaining - his earliest substitution since September - to conclude another wayward performance.

Up against a side slumped in 19th place and without a goal in more than 400 minutes of Premier League football, Chelsea still conspired to unconvincingly see out the win.

Palmer's penalty perfection punctured

Cole Palmer missed the first penalty of his Premier League career / Mike Hewitt/GettyImages

After six games, eight weeks and 25 shots without a goal, Palmer was presented with a penalty to end the longest scoring drought of his career. In another unwanted milestone, the increasingly ruffled playmaker saw his spot kick saved.

Palmer had converted his first 12 top-flight penalties, surpassing Yaya Toure's Premier League record, before Mads Hermansen succeeded where ten other goalkeepers had failed.

There were the typical delays from Leicester's bickering players and even the referee questioned Palmer's positioning of the ball on the spot, adding more dead air to a frustratingly stop-start contest. Yet, these stoppages didn't disrupt Palmer's routine - he proudly doesn't have one.

When previously asked about his process, the 22-year-old shrugged: "I just put the ball down on the spot, step back and shoot." Perhaps, it's time for some vague semblance of preparation.

Patience wearing thin with Enzoball

Enzo Maresca was not particularly popular with either set of fans on Sunday / JUSTIN TALLIS/GettyImages

There was a damning passage of play midway through the first half when three distinct, collective groans seeped out of Stamford Bridge in less than a couple of minutes as a trio of Chelsea players halted their own chance of a breakaway. The deceleration from Wesley Fofana in particular was so forceful it was as though an invisible handbrake had been pulled. There was no doubt that Maresca's fingerprints would have been on the handle.

As Leicester fans learned while winning promotion to the Premier League under the Italian coach last season, the primary object of any Maresca team is patience. "If you attack quick, you are going to concede a quick attack," the Blues boss has explained this season. "It's not our idea, it's not our football."

Yet, that was exactly the type of football which defined Chelsea's fast start to the campaign. Palmer repeatedly fed Nicolas Jackson's forward bursts as a squad littered with fleet-footed wingers made the most of its strengths. Jackson's continued absence has undoubtedly contributed to the dialled-down tempo, but Maresca has made no secret about his desire for measured build-up play.

The Pep Guardiola disciple may argue that Chelsea's opener came from a familiar sequence of stroking the ball around (rather than into) Leicester's penalty box. But to rely upon the long-range accuracy of Cucurella - a defender whose last and only league goal from outside the box was for Getafe four-and-a-half years ago - is not exactly a reproducible route to success.

Change in formation but no change in fortunes for Leicester

Luke Thomas (left) had a tough afternoon / Mike Hewitt/GettyImages

There was a sense of weariness in Van Nistelrooy's voice when he reflected on the "long week" Leicester had to prepare for Sunday's game. Aside from stewing on the desperately disappointing 2-0 defeat to West Ham last time out, the Dutch boss used those ten days to belatedly attempt a tactical tweak.

For the first time since Van Nistelrooy's appointment in November, Leicester ditched their familiar 4-2-3-1 setup to deploy a back three. Natural left-back Luke Thomas was drafted in alongside a returning Conor Coady and Wout Faes. Making just his third top-flight start of the season, the 23-year-old almost gave a penalty away in the opening 100 seconds and spent the remaining 90 minutes hurriedly charging around midfield with plenty of punch but not much purpose or precision.

Crucially no one, from the new-look backline and under-staffed midfield, rushed out to close down Cucurella as he rattled in the opening goal. Leicester's wait for a top-flight clean sheet now stands at five months and counting.

Wesley Fofana wins battle of wills

Wesley Fofana was back on the pitch for Chelsea / Dan Istitene/GettyImages

A storm in a teacup has nothing on Wesley Fofana's injury updates in terms of needless aggravation. Maresca claimed that the French defender "could be out of the season" with a hamstring injury he sustained in December, yet Fofana took to social media to completely (and unnecessarily) undermine his manager. Maresca was then forced to clarify that his centre-back would be available again in "12 to 16 weeks".

Exactly 14 weeks since his last appearance, but crucially two months before the season's conclusion, Fofana was back in the starting lineup against his former employers. Lining up as a right-back who tucked infield when the Blues had the ball, Fofana looked very much like a player shaking off the rust from a lengthy layoff.

Despite a performance peppered with moments of indecision, Fofana was treated to a standing ovation when he was subbed off, still intact, with 20 minutes to play.

Check out the player ratings from Chelsea 1-0 Leicester in the Premier League.