CITY 2 SUNDERLAND 0
Report by Eddie Blount
It cannot happen very often that the Man of the Match spends only 30 minutes on the pitch, but that’s exactly what happened at the King Power last night as a lethargic, listless City were dramatically transformed by the arrival on the hour of one Marc Albrighton.
Taken ill just before last Saturday’s match he was replaced by crowd favourite Demari Gray on that occasion and deservedly Gray’s performance then earned him the nod for a starting position against the Black Cats. Unfortunately Gray was generally less effective against Sunderland apart from a superb shot just before half-time which resulted in a fine save by their young keeper, Jordan Pickford. Gray has speed and dribbling ability plus a good shot on his right foot but he needs to work more on picking out a telling pass as he bursts towards the opponent’s goal.
So it came to pass that Craig Shakespeare realised the need to freshen things up as City struggled to find a way past a team that had failed to score in their previous five games but were belying their position as relegation certainties and playing with spirit and determination and increasing confidence.
Enter Albrighton stage left as instructed by Shakespeare! Within a very few minutes of his arrival Albrighton was put clear down the left flank and, giving Gray a lesson in wing player, he delivered the perfect cross to the far post where fellow sub, Slimani, was lurking with clear intent. Brushing off the defender’s challenge Slimani’s downward header gave Pickford no chance.
Ten minutes later came an even greater illustration of Albrighton’s value to the side as he took advantage of a slip by a Sunderland defender to steal possession just inside his own half. Instantly Albrighton was scooting away in top gear with the irrepressible Vardy not far behind. As he reached the penalty area Albrighton judged his pass to the onrushing Vardy to perfection. In turn Vardy showed what a quality striker he has become, taking one touch at full throttle before smashing the ball unstoppably into the top left corner of Pickford’s net. A wonderful goal and one which had Leicester, Champions of England, written all over it! This ended the game as a contest and a by now rampant City could easily have doubled the score before the end.
Yet for most of the game it had been very different. Certainly in the first half Sunderland were the better side and this pattern continued until Albrighton arrived. They had not scored for 475 minutes before last night and it was easy to see why. They played a 3-6-1 system occasionally morphing into 3- 5 -2 and simply created …..nothing!
The midfield was so crowded that nobody had time on the ball for long so hurried, misplaced passes were the order of the day from both sides. Even Ndidi found the going tough and had his least impressive game to date though his talent remains obvious. Sunderland only posed a threat from set-pieces and they had plenty of those as referee Scott (new to me) gave them several generous free kicks. They also earned a number of corners but these opportunities were lost as City, lacking captain, Morgan, nevertheless were well organised defensively with deputy, Benalouane reading the game well and ably assisting Robert Huth in central defence.
Indeed Huth came close to opening the scoring close to the interval with a looping header that Pickford touched over at full stretch. Sunderland went in at half-time well satisfied with how things were going but Shakey’s team talk no doubt emphasised that although we were nowhere near our best they had not looked like scoring and we occasionally had!
The second half initially continued in the same vein as the first, so much so that before the substitutions the crowd had twice tried to rouse the team with persistent chants of ‘Come on Leicester.’ Normally one burst is sufficient but not last night! So this was a match which for most of its duration reminded us of the earlier struggles under Ranieri and had Sunderland scored first – unlikely I admit – I believe they would have won.
But Shakey is the Lucky One and all turned out well in the end so that we have become only the second Premiership team apparently to lose five on the trot and then win five consecutively (Spurs have also managed it). The only blip in City’s last half -hour dominance came just before the magnificent second goal when Sunderland finally got numbers into our penalty area in open play and their substitute, Anichebe, saw a deflected shot hit the post before Defoe, largely under control, smashed the rebound into the side netting from an acute angle.
So Shakey’s army marches on and we are currently tenth. At the start of the season we would surely have accepted tenth and qualifying for the later stages of the Champions’ League as decent objectives. One down and one to go! It will be interesting to see the side Shakespeare puts out at Everton on Sunday given our almost safe league position and the match against Athletico on Wednesday
City: Schmeichel, Simpson, Benalouane, Huth, Fuchs, Drinkwater, Ndidi (King 82), Mahrez, Gray (Albrighton 62), Okazaki (Slimani 62), Vardy
Sunderland: Pickford, Jones, Kone, Denayer, Oviedo, Cattermole (Anichebe73), N’Dong, Rodwell (Gibson 80), Larrson (Khazri 73), Borini, Defoe
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