Lukaku on target as Chelsea quieten the noise
OPENER: Chelsea's Romelu Lukaku scores his side's first goal at the Riverside Stadium.
ROMELU Lukaku and Hakim Ziyech scored the first half goals that carried crisis club Chelsea through to the FA Cup semi-finals despite the controversies and uncertainty raging off the field.
It marked a fourth victory in 10 days from Thomas Tuchel and his players since the UK government announced sanctions against Chelsea owner Roman Abramovich and threw the club’s future into uncertainty.
And the victory also kept Tuchel’s side, who reached the Champions League quarter-finals in midweek, dreaming of what would be a fifth FA Cup Final in the past six seasons.
If Chelsea needed an early boost, to tune out all the noise that has attended them in recent days since Abramovich was placed under sanction, then Lukaku provided them with it after just 15 minutes.
The Belgian international had missed a close-range effort after just three minutes, failing to connect with a Mason Mount cross at the near post while Christian Pulisic did likewise at the far.
But a similar move opened up Boro once more for the opener, with Ziyech sweeping the ball wide to Mount whose low centre was turned in by Lukaku, arriving ahead of Anfernee Dijksteel.
It looked like a tall order for the Championship side was teetering towards the impossible and a second Chelsea goal, after 31 minutes, added to that feeling.
It came from a superb, four-pass move that took the ball from keeper Edouard Mendy, via Antonio Rudiger, Mateo Kovacic and Mount, to Ziyech on the right wing.
The Moroccan cut in from his touchline, to the edge of the Boro area where his excellent 20-yard strike curled past the diving Joe Lumley, who might have judged his angles better.
The tie would have been over, five minutes later, if Dijksteel had not made a breathless recovery to clear Lukaku’s effort off the line after the Belgian had rounded Lumley.
Chelsea were content to largely go through the motions in the second half with a shot from Mount deflected behind and a Timo Werner effort well blocked by Sol Bamba the closest the visitors came to a third.
But they were well in control and never offered Boro hope of the sort of unlikely drama that they had attracted earlier in the cup run with wins over Manchester United and Tottenham.
Substitute Duncan Whatmore curled one effort over from just inside the area while Mendy did well to pluck out dangerous crosses from Isaiah Jones and Josh Coburn on the rare occasions Middlesbrough threatened.
(3-5-2): Lumley 5; Dijksteel 7, McNair 5 (Peltier 53, 5), Fry 5 (Bamba 45, 6); Jones 8, Crooks 6, Howson 5, Tavernier 7, Taylor 5 (Bola 57, 6); Balogun 5 (Coburn 78, 5), Connolly 6 (Watmore 58, 6).
: Hall, Olusanya, Daniels, Boyd-Munce.
(4-1-4-1): Mendy 6; Azpilicueta 6, Silva 6, Rudiger 7, Sarr 7; Loftus-Cheek 6; Ziyech 9 (Kenedy 81), Mount 7, Kovacic 6, Pulisic 7; Lukaku 8 (Vale 84).
: Alonso, Bettinelli, Chalobah, Barkley, Havertz.
: P Tierney 7
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