Chelsea were held to a 1-1 draw against Leicester City in Frank Lampard’s first home game in charge at Stamford Bridge. The Blues lost their opening Premier League game 4-0 at Manchester United last Sunday before losing the Uefa Super Cup against Liverpool on Wednesday.
Leicester picked up a fortunate point against Wolves at the King Power Stadium eight days ago, but the Foxes arrived in west London looking to emulate last season’s 1-0 win in the same fixture.
There was no chance of a repeat as Chelsea took a deserved early lead through Mason Mount as they went on to dominate the majority of the first half.
However, Leicester came back strongly after the break to snatch a well-earned point through Wilfred Ndidi, although they will feel unfortunate not to have come away with a victory as they pushed for a winner late on.
Lampard made one change to his Blues’ side from the penalty shoot-out defeat against Liverpool in Istanbul as Mount replaced Mateo Kovacic.
Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers made one enforced switch from last weekend’s goalless draw against Wolves as Christian Fuchs replaced the ill Ben Chilwell at left-back.
Pedro went close inside the opening minute when Olivier Giroud headed down a Cesar Azpilicueta cross from the right into the path of Pedro and he slammed a half-volley into the side-netting from the right of the box.
Within a minute Kasper Schmeichel could only parry a strike from Mount and Ricardo Pereira blocked Christian Pulisic’s follow-up attempt before the Foxes cleared their lines.
The Blues were rewarded for their bright start with the opening goal in the seventh minute when Mount robbed possession from Wilfred Ndidi just outside the Leicester area and then drilled a low effort beyond the dive of Schmeichel into the bottom corner of the net.
Mount went close to adding a second on 22 minutes when he got his head to Azpilicueta’s cross from the right but could only guide his close-range effort straight at Schmeichel, before N’Golo Kante saw his close-range effort deflect just wide off Fuchs moments later.
Leicester managed to grab a foothold in the contest and enjoyed some good possession towards the interval.
They almost levelled five minutes into the second half when James Maddison managed to trick his way past Kepa Arrizabalaga down the left of the Chelsea area, but Jorginho managed to cut out the pull-back into the middle and Fuchs then fired over the top from distance.
The Foxes continued to look a threat and they were deservedly on level terms in the 67th minute when Ndidi made amends for his mistake in Chelsea’s goal by getting up highest in the centre to powerfully header Maddison’s right-wing corner past Kepa.
Maddison should have put his side ahead on 73 minutes when the ball broke kindly for him inside the Chelsea area, but he blazed his close-range effort over with just Kepa to beat.
Moments later Maddison turned provider as he played on Jamie Vardy down the left of the area and lashed a low left-foot strike just wide of the far corner of Kepa’s goal.
Leicester went close again in the 90th minute when Youri Tielemans crashed a shot towards goal but it was too close to Kepa who pushed it away to safety, before an offside flag was raised as Maddison put the ball into the net in stoppage time.
