Chelsea finally won the FA Cup 5-0 at home to League Two Morecambe on Saturday.
It was a win that deserved not three cheers but two, maybe one as the Premier League giants made a tough time of their lowly visitors before a run of three goals in seven second-half minutes skewed the score.
In a display that saw Chelsea progress to the fourth round of the FA Cup, few members of the club’s B-team made a strong case for promotion to the Premier League XI.
How the match unfolded
Chelsea they started Saturday’s competition with the confidence of a side that is 87 places above their opponents. The fourth-tier strugglers were locked in their own half for much of the opening 15 minutes before succumbing to mounting pressure late on.
Morecambe captain Yann Songo’o took an unusual blocking approach Joao Felixcrosses instinctively raising both arms, locking them in an upright position as if about to dive into an invisible pool. Christopher Nkunku, however, failed to punish the captain’s flop.
The French forward had little effort in Harry Burgoyne’s wing range, watching the Shrimps keeper keep the tie alive.
Those inside Stamford Bridge ended the first half with broken necks, their eyes constantly on Morecambe’s half of the pitch. But Derek Adams’ side fought bravely, pulling the red shirt in front of the ball as Chelsea fired a flurry of shots. Unfortunately for the high-spirited visitors, Callum Jones was not about to stand in the way of Tosin Adarabioyo’s speculative effort, inadvertently deflecting the centre-back’s shot away from his keeper in the 40th minute.
Nkunku made up for his miscued spot-kick within five minutes of the restart. Jones underlined the quality of Chelsea’s opponents with a touch in his box that was so heavy it could have been a pass for Renato Veiga. His powerful effort from the Portuguese midfielder was denied by Burgoyne before Nkunku cleared the rebound.
After more than an hour pinned to the ropes, Morecambe eventually crumpled to the canvas for the final 20 minutes. Tosin added his second of the game – Chelsea’s third – with an even sweeter long-range strike that required no misdirection of a rebound to fool Burgoyne.
Joao Felix soon found his range, curling in a pair of finishes less than two minutes apart to make it 5-0.
Morecambe had a chance to give their raucous traveling support something to shout about other than their hated owners. On a rare foray forward in the 88th minute, the aptly named Hallam Hope was responsible for the visitors’ last chance, but tamely rolled the ball into the welcoming gloves of Filip Jorgensen.
Check out the Chelsea vs Morecambe player ratings here.
That, as much as he doesn’t like it, is Christopher Nkunku’s level these days. Former Bundesliga the top scorer and £52m signing was the reluctant talisman of Chelsea’s B-team. Of the 13 starting positions he made this season, only three were in the Premier League.
Nkunku made the most of these cup outings; the calm finish he scored on Saturday was his 11th goal in the European Conference League, Carabao Cup and FA Cup. However, the Frenchman couldn’t even manage to smile.
Maybe the missed penalty in the first half was still on his mind, or maybe he was trying to score a bigger point. Rumors have intensified this month claiming that Nkunku is in a desperate search for move away from Stamford Bridge to earn a few minutes against clubs that sat a little higher in the professional pyramid than 91. Barcelona is mentioned as a potential destination, but Maresca insists that he wants his disaffected attacker to stay.
Whether Nkunku can handle another six months among the substitutes remains to be seen.
No VAR in the third round of the FA Cup means that this penalty was not repeated 😶#BBCFACup #BBCFootball pic.twitter.com/4lhv4H6JM7
— Match of the Day (@BBCMOTD) January 11, 2025
As Chelsea found out on Saturday after Morecambe’s Harry Burgoyne scampered off his line to save Nkunku’s penalty, there was no VAR is used in the third round of the FA Cup. The controversial video system has many flaws, but it would surely have spotted the goalkeeper’s illegal wandering, allowing Nkunko to repeat his saved spot-kick.
This was little more than a small wrinkle to the end of Chelsea’s comfortable victory, but the team will not always be so lucky.
The world’s oldest cup competition has always struggled to decipher how best to implement technological advances. The FA Cup was a decade old before permanent goal posts were introduced, let alone pitchside monitors. The logic behind the seemingly arbitrary decision to introduce VAR from the fifth round onwards is hard to find.
Football fans can’t agree on much, but the vague concept of “consistency” seems to be one of the values cherished above all others. In that case, how can there be a single standard of officiating in a competition where the rules change from one game to the next?
On a day when Tyrique George showed some flashes of promising footwork – particularly after bringing in a missing full-back to take some of the defensive focus away – and Joao Felix scored, Marc Guiu notably failed to make a mark.
The former Barcelona striker, whose incisive approach has earned him six goals in his previous five appearances, finished the match with 11 touches. Even that miserable result – the least of any outfield player to last the full 90 minutes – seemed too high for the performance he produced.
Hidden in a mass of Morecambe red shirts sunk in a block so low it sometimes veered into the Shed End, Guiu spent large parts of Saturday’s contest completely isolated from the rest of his team-mates.
At a time when Nicolas Jackson’s slump in form could offer a way into the first team, Guiu hasn’t done too much to suggest he deserves a starting place in England’s top flight.
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