Leicester City 1 v 0 Bristol City
Post Match Analysis by Stuart Dawkins
Anyone who has had a Premier League Fantasy Football team over the last few years will know how frustrating Pep Guardiola can be. You pick a Man City player in great form and, unless it is Haaland, find he’s on the bench for the next match and picks you up a measly one point by coming on as a late sub. Pep’s protégé – Enzo Maresca – is clearly of a similar mind. Having made five changes to the line-up after the demolition of Southampton, today he made five changes again, after the equally good win against Norwich. In came Vardy, Pereira, Dewsbury-Hall, Faes and – for his first start – Fatawu; all of those rotated out were on the bench.
Bristol City, sporting their pin-striped robin-red shirts, included three former-Leicester icons. Matty James began the game as captain, Andy King was on the bench and their manager is Nigel Pearson – all got genuinely warm and affectionate responses from the home crowd.
Leicester had the ball for most of the first half. They moved it quickly and Bristol did well to keep hanging on. Most of the threat came via Fatawu on the right wing, but Mavididi on the left was lively too. Both wingers looked able to get past their defenders regularly, but the final ball was never quite good enough. A noticeable feature was that Faes, Pereira and Vestergaard carried the ball up the pitch quite regularly when there were no good passing options.
After 30-minutes, there was chanting from the home fans when Andy King warmed up, although in the event we did not get to see him play.
Leicester had a number of shots on target, but the Bristol keeper, O’Leary, did not have to work too hard to keep a clean sheet until half-time. The home fans’ occasional periods of frustration so far this season have been when Leicester have wasted opportunities by taking one too many passes. Unusually, in the first half, there were more opportunities wasted by players trying to dribble past one too many defenders. This happened far less in the second half, although whether that was by chance, or the result of the half-time team talk is impossible to say.
Bristol had no forward threat at all until the final five minutes of the half and created no real chances even then. In fact, their forward pressure came close to giving Leicester another of the many goals they have scored so far this season in added-time, but in this case the breakaway chance was squandered, and the match remained goal-less.
At half-time, it was good to see The Birch doing an announcement, as he has not been seen much this season so far. He introduced the Leicestershire County Cricket team, who had won the County’s first top-level trophy since 1985. They got a great reception from all around the ground, including the Bristol fans, as they paraded the trophy around the pitch.
Leicester started the second half with Justin replacing Doyle at left back, having played at right back for the Southampton game – demonstrating again the flexibility in the current Leicester squad.
City were much sharper from the kick-off. Within the first five minutes of the half, they had created two good chances and Bristol had two players booked for fouling City players who had beaten them for pace. From the second of these, it was a delight to see Vestergaard take a free-kick from 30-yeards out. Sadly, it clipped the top of the wall and flew away for a corner kick – had he scored it would have been a good reward for another solid performance – his umpteenth in a row this season.
Leicester continued to create attacking opportunities, but often the final cross was not quite good enough. Bristol remained organised but were clearly beginning to find the pace a bit too much now, and it looked as though the match was turning into a preview of the Conservative Party’s chances at the next General Election … would the red wall hold. Pearson made three changes in the 57th minute. This stabilised things a bit and Bristol had a brief spell when they kept some possession, culminating in Faes getting a yellow card for bringing down a player wide on the half-way line who had just turned past him.
Eventually, the deadlock was broken. Pereira played a delightful through ball to Ndidi. The Nigerian is beginning to look like a really composed forward these days. As at Norwich, he did not immediately take a shot – as might have been his approach on the few occasions he had attacking opportunities in previous years – instead he turned the defender to get a better angle … was clattered to the ground by a clumsy challenge for a clear penalty.
Vardy stepped up to take it. The Bristol fans increased the volume of their singing about his wife. Vardy struck the ball in a way that looked at first like it might fly over the bar, but no it was a perfect shot into the roof of the net giving the ‘keeper no chance. Vardy then sprinted the length of the pitch to celebrate in front of the away fans.
Having broken through at last, it seemed likely that Leicester might get more, but that did not happen. Pearson made a couple more substitutions and Bristol began to press Leicester for the first time. The home crowd are still not fully accustomed to Leicester playing the ball at the back to play around a press. There is a fear that it might all go wrong, but today the only flaw was a poor back pass by Pereira that led to a chance that was wasted by Bristol.
McAteer replaced Fatawu. Fatawu had been the most eye-catching player and got a good round of applause, as did McAteer whose recent goal-scoring achievements are already making him popular.
With three minutes of the 90 to go, Iheanacho and Casadei replaced Vardy and Ndidi. Four minutes of additional time were indicated. Leicester were playing to protect the one-nil score – with Iheanacho taking a corner as part of an attempt to hold the ball to kill time.
Bristol were giving as good as they got and testing the Leicester defence, with Hermansen dropping the ball at one stage and a couple of other chances were created by the visitors. Many teams this season have wilted in the final ten minutes against Leicester but, to the credit of Nigel Pearson and his backroom team, Bristol still looked as sharp as Leicester – helped by having five of the outfield players being substitutes.
With one minute to go, the referee gave a rather soft free-kick against Vestergaard 20-yards from the Leicester goal. It would have been ill-luck if that had resulted in an equaliser – both for Leicester and for the near-flawless Vestergaard – but the shot was an easy save for Hermansen and shortly afterwards the final whistle was blown.
As the players from both teams mingled after the whistle, Nigel Pearson appeared on the pitch on crutches, to warm applause from both sets of fans. Andy King and Matty James did a lap of the pitch, applauding the Leicester fans and being applauded themselves in return.
With Preston only drawing, Leicester are now on top of the Championship, ahead of Ipswich on goal difference, and they have done this by resting players and using pretty much the whole squad. It has been an impressive start to the season.
Leicester City
Hermansen, Ricardo Pereira, Faes, Vestergaard, Doyle, Ndidi, Winks, Dewsbury-Hall, Fatawu, Vardy, Mavididi
Substitutes
Justin, Coady, Casadei, Albrighton, Iheanacho, Choudhury, Akgün, McAteer, Stolarczyk
Bristol City
O’Leary, Tanner, Dickie, Naismith, Pring, James, Williams, Sykes, Knight, Bell, Wells
Substitutes
Cornick, King, Mehmeti, Weimann, Gardner-Hickman, Bajic, Roberts, Yeboah, 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.