Man Utd 1 City 0
Report by Kate Thompson
Like I guess many City fans, I travelled to Old Trafford with a lot of optimism and sure that we would finally win at a stadium where we have had no recent success. After all, the last match was excellent – apart from too much passing sideways and backwards! – but I should have known better.
One of the causes of optimism was the thought that the players would know Maguire’s weaknesses, and Vardy’s pace would be a problem to him. Sadly, the opposite was the case and Vardy only got the better of him on one occasion, when he was able to slide the ball invitingly across the box, but with no City player there to score.
I was not surprised by the two changes and felt that Gray deserved a chance, after his good cameo against Bournemouth, but sadly he failed yet again to live up to his reputation and perhaps his own view of how good he is. We should have let Bournemouth sign him when they wanted to!
I am an Albrighton fan, for more than his playing abilities, but on this occasion I think Barnes was the better choice; he came on for the ineffective Gray in the 68th minute and the other substitute was Perez for Choudhury in the 57th minute.
Like other matches, Leicester started slowly and were therefore having to play catch-up from the 8th minute when Rashford went down for a very soft penalty. For neither the first nor last time the referee, Martin Atkinson, infuriated the City fans; I don’t like criticising referees but he ignored blatant fouls against City players while blowing for every little contact against a United player.
Rashford scored a good penalty – apparently he missed the last one – and I suppose we should be grateful that we didn’t have to watch Pogba’s silly antics when he takes them! Soyuncu was adjudged to have brought Rashford down and he needs to learn not to do anything at all careless in the box.
Apart from that he was pretty solid and Evans was probably the best player. Usually reliable players, like Ricardo and Tielemans were below their best and Vardy hardly had any opportunities to score.
City had 58% of the possession but we all know what a meaningless statistic that is! In all honesty, they huffed and puffed to very little effect and the only shots on target were from Maddison and Chilwell in the first half, which De Gea dealt with easily.
Two players were booked, Maddison for a silly foul and Chilwell for something that happened right at the end of the game; there was some sort of scuffle in the far corner, but I have no idea what happened as it was so far away!
I wonder if City were carried away by the hype in some quarters and thought it would be easy. If they didn’t know before that there are no easy games in the Premier League, they will now.
Man Utd: de Gea, Wan Bissaka, Lindelof, Maguire, Young, McTominay, Matic, Andreas Pereira, Mata, James, Rashford. Subs: Jones, Fred, Romero, Greenwood, Gomes, Tuanzebe, Chong.
Leicester: Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell, Ndidi, Gray, Tielemans, Choudhury, Maddison, Vardy. Subs: Justin, Morgan, Albrighton, Ward, Barnes, Perez, Praet.
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation