While there’s an extensive lower league programme, the FA Cup takes centre stage this weekend, creating another opportunity for one of those yearned-for upsets capable of cheering the nation’s football fans.
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OverviewMK have been struggling in the league and as a result they are 20 on the table and just one point clear of the relegation zone.
However, the defending Premier League champions finally got their breakthrough after a defensive lapse from the Dons.
Chelsea are now 13th in the top flight and they will know this competition is their best chance of silverware in the short term.
15th minutes: a terrible Kyle McFadzean backpass ended up with Diego Costa sliding the ball across the goal area for Oscar to add the last rites.
Speaking at his pre-match press conference ahead of the game, the Blues” boss insisted that the club had not made a gamble by signing the former AC Milan wonderkid, while commending the 26-year-old on the “brave step’ he has made to try his luck again in Europe. Although many think that Chelsea winning against MK Dons is inevitable, it’s not! An early surge through the centre from Josh Murphy, which ended with him drawing a foul on the edge of the box from John Terry, showed Chelsea’s lack of bite in midfield.
It already looked a case of damage limitation for the Championship so it came completely out of the blue when Potter beat Thibaut Courtois via a deflection off Nemanja Matic on 21 minutes.
Guus Hiddink’s side ensured safe passage to the fifth round when Eden Hazard won a penalty in the 55th minute and the Belgian worldwide dusted himself off to cooly slot home the spot kick for 4-1.
Hazard dusted himself off to take the penalty himself for his first, surprising as it may seem, goal of the season.
Whilst Chelsea can afford the luxury of paying £multi-million transfer fees to address weak areas in their team, bringing in “names” that the footballing public know and recognise, MK Dons can’t find a stable base from which to train for games. “The players have responded very well to the way we are working”, he said.
FA Cup hosts MK Dons show a strong home bias on paper, but Burnley won 5-0 there a couple of weeks back so it’s hardly Fort Knox, is it?
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Substitute Traore then completed a routine victory for the visitors when he finished with a first-time shot after Hazard had chased Cesc Fabregas’s pass out to the byline before setting up the Burkina Faso youngster.
