Northampton 0 City 1 – Pre-season friendly
Report by Kate Thompson
Unfortunately, I missed the first ten minutes of the game along with many others. As well as road works on the road in from the M1, the official car parks which we had been encouraged to use did not appear to be in operation. However, when I watched the highlights on the club website, it is clear that nothing happened in that time!
The team that played for the first hour appeared to be the first choice for the upcoming season. The only doubt was around Wanya Marçal-Madivadua, who wore the number 7 shirt in the absence of Harvey Barnes; Maresca later said that Barnes had a slight issue, presumably meaning an injury. Somewhat surprisingly, Callum Doyle started at number 5 despite his arrival only being announced on Friday. Vardy was captain on this occasion. The Northampton team contained Sean Dyche’s son and eight trialists.
The most notable thing was that City moved the ball round quickly and dominated possession, as we had been led to expect. Pereira was playing higher up for much of the game, mainly because City had little defending to do. Castagne was the busier of the wing backs although Marçal-Madivadua was effective on the left-hand side.
Doyle played as a left back and Coady partnered Faes in the centre of the back line. Again, as we had been led to believe, Coady was very vocal and it will be interesting to see if he gets the armband, despite being a recent addition to the squad, especially as it does not look likely that Evans will sign a new contract. Indeed, there are rumours that he will join up with Rodgers again at Celtic.
The only goal came in the 27th minute, when after a period of sustained pressure, a dinked cross from Castagne fell nicely for Dewsbury-Hall to head home.
The goalkeeper for the first half was the under 21s keeper, Jakub Stolarczyk. He was replaced at half-time by Iverson, and Doyle by Kristiansen. Nine more subs came on for the last half-hour: Justin, Souttar, Ndidi, Daka, Iheanacho, Albrighton, Vestergaard, Choudhury and McAteer. There were a few surprises, notably that Ndidi was playing much higher up that he has before, and that Vestergaard looked like a good defender! It was clear from the reception Albrighton got every time he received the ball that he is still a firm fans’ favourite because of how hard he works.
City had more scoring opportunities in the second half but failed to take any of them, due to a mix of miscued shots and some good goalkeeping. It must have been very difficult to play in the conditions, with a driving rain and swirling wind. Even those of us nominally under cover got soaked! Hopefully the manager and his staff learnt what they needed to do.
Leicester (up to 60 minutes): Jakub Stolarczyk (Daniel Iversen 45), Wout Faes, Conor Coady, Callum Doyle (Victor Kristiansen 45), Ricardo Pereira, Timothy Castagne, Harry Winks, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Dennis Praet, Wanya Marcal-Madivadua, Jamie Vardy
After 60 minutes: Daniel Iversen, Harry Souttar, Jannik Vestergaard, Victor Kristiansen, James Justin, Hamza Choudhury, Wilfred Ndidi, Kasey McAteer, Marc Albrighton, Kelechi Iheanacho, Patson Daka.
Unused: Danny Ward, Ben Nelson
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