March 20, (THEWILL) – With a 2-0 win over Middlesbrough at the Riverside Stadium on Saturday, Chelsea advanced to the FA Cup semi-finals despite off-pitch problems facing the English Premier League club.
They faced a partisan Riverside Stadium as they had barely managed to sell only a portion of their ticket allocation before the government imposed sanctions on club owner Roman Abramovich.
To the credit of Thomas Tuchel and his players, the visitors were confident enough to avoid an upset against the side that knocked Tottenham Hotspur and Manchester United out in previous rounds of the league competition.
Chelsea were two goals ahead and cruising at halftime after overcoming a few stumbling blocks.
Mason Mount remained a constant menace, and his low cross almost set up Christian Pulisic for an early goal, but the American was unable to reach the ball on the stretch. After a quarter-hour, Mount replicated the trick at the conclusion of a wonderful back-to-front passing move, and this time Romelu Lukaku was on hand to tap home.
However, by giving the ball away and committing unnecessary fouls in critical locations, the Blues allowed Boro back into the game. But, the Blues survived the storm and scored on the break, with Hakim Ziyech slamming a shot into the bottom corner from the edge of the box.
Chelsea thought they had the tie covered up nine minutes before halftime when Lukaku turned Joe Lumley and side-footed a low effort inside the near post, but Anfernee Dijksteel expertly denied him on the goal line.
There was a rush of chances in the final 15 minutes, after most of the second half passed mostly incident-free. Another fine pass from Mount to substitute Timo Werner, saw the ball headed towards goal but Lumley stopped it. The German should have scored again with ten minutes to go, but his shot was well blocked by veteran Sol Bamba.
Josh Coburn, Boro’s hero in the last round, came close to netting a consolation, but Edouard Mendy saved his hard strike from the angle. That was all that mattered and Chelsea had done enough to reach the final four.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
