City 2 Brighton 2
Post Match Analysis by Kate Thompson
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.
Once Brighton had scored the second goal, the BBC commentator (Guy Mowbray) said something along the lines of ‘there is no way Leicester can come back from this’. For once the slogan, ‘Foxes never quit’ was absolutely right.
With less than ten minutes to go, and against a well organised Brighton team, it seemed as if Ruud’s luck had run out. But the evergreen Vardy came up trumps again, diverting a deflected shot into the Brighton net. What followed shows what a team player Vardy is. Mavididi bullied his way past a Brighton defender to lay the ball on to Vardy; many strikers would have taken the chance themselves, but Vardy saw that De Cordova-Reid was much better placed and laid it on a plate for him. For a few seconds we even dared to dream that we could snatch victory, as we did against Southampton earlier in the season.
Ayew came in for the ineligible Buonanotte and showed – to me at least – that there is more to his game than just winning free kicks. Sadly, El Khannouss was a shadow of the player he was on Tuesday, and although he won some balls that he had no right to do, immediately gave it away again on several occasions. Soumare showed again what a good player he is, after a pretty torrid time at Leicester, but his booking means that he now has to miss a match for accumulating five yellow cards. I was convinced that Ndidi had been booked earlier in the game, but he hadn’t, but unfortunately he was substituted very early after an injury, since confirmed as his hamstring.
Hermansen continued to show what an excellent goalkeeper he is, with some outstanding saves, and we will do well to hang onto him at the end of the season as the ‘sharks’ start circling the club again.
The defence looked a lot more solid that they did on Tuesday, and this was borne out by the number of chances Brighton had – 16 – roughly half of those that West Ham had. I like Coady and I hope he continues to be given his chance; I love the way he talks to his colleagues and from what I can tell talks a lot of sense. Justin was more effective than in recent games, but Kristiansen needs to do more to convince me that he is the right player at left back. McAteer was lively and you always thought something would happen when he received the ball.
Van Nistelrooy used his substitutes well and the addition of an extra striker in Daka gave the Brighton defenders more of a challenge. Mavididi was his usual busy self (and set up the second goal) and Skipp – another player I like – was a good stand-in for Ndidi even if he doesn’t have the giraffe-like legs!
So, I was happy with a draw as a win always looked unlikely. I’ve read that it’s better to have a lucky manager rather than a good one, but it looks at this very early stage as if we may have both.
City: Mads Hermansen; James Justin, Conor Coady, Jannik Vestergaard (Wout Faes 81), Victor Kristiansen; Wilfred Ndidi (Oliver Skipp 52) Boubakary Soumare; Kasey McAteer (Bobby De Cordova-Reid 62), Bilal El Khannouss (Patson Daka 81), Jordan Ayew (Stephy Mavididi 62); Jamie Vardy. Subs (not used): Danny Ward, Hamza Choudhury, Luke Thomas, Caleb Okoli.
Brighton: Bart Verbruggen; Tariq Lamptey, Lewis Dunk, Jan Paul van Hecke, Pervis Estupinan; Georginio Rutter, Yasin Ayari (Matthew O’Riley 71), Carlos Baleba (Mats Wieffer 45), Kaoru Mitoma (Igor 89); Evan Ferguson (Danny Welbeck 70), Joao Pedro (Yankuba Minteh 70). Subs (not used): Jason Steele, Brajan Gruda, Jakub Moder, Simon Adingra.
Ref: Stuart Atwell