LCFC 3 v 0 Newport County, Carabao Cup 3rd Round
Report by Stuart Dawkins
This evening ranks as a job well done for City. The team has recent form for losing a Cup tie against Newport and there is little upside for any Goliath team playing against the Davids in a Cup match, so a comfortable three-nil score counts as a good result.
The King Power Stadium was less than half full, but there were two real positives to note. The Newport fans were out in good numbers and kept in great voice for the entire match. And the home fans included a large number of families with younger children – I suspect for many it will have been their first match.
There can be all kinds of conversations about the relevance of competitions such as the Carabao Cup, but if the easy availability and cheap price of tickets has meant that some young boy or girl has had their first taste of watching live football, and can tell their friends they saw Jamie Vardy score two goals – well, that seems a worthwhile thing to me (whether the competition could be restructured so that all of the early rounds take place during school holidays might be a logistical challenge too far, but I’m putting it out there as an idea!)
Anyway, on to the match itself. Rodgers made a lot of changes to the starting side, but it still looked recognisably a Leicester line-up designed to win. Iversen had a start in goal, Justin moved to right-back with Thomas on the left, Ndidi and Praet started in midfield, Evans and Faes were the centre-backs and Vardy led the line.
The majority of the first half can be summed up very simply. City had almost total possession (well over 80% for most of the half). They looked faster and stronger in all departments, and the midfield had more space than they would ever anticipate getting in a Premier League fixture.
Notwithstanding this, they struggled to create good scoring opportunities. Any number of times nice play resulted in crossing positions being found, but the final ball was not quite there, or a Newport defender did just enough to neutralise the threat. Probably the best chance came early, when Vardy was through one-on-one with the keeper, for the first of four or five times during the match. He chose to try to square the ball to the unmarked Perez rather than shooting. His pass was under-hit and a defender managed to intercept.
The other good chance was a well-worked move that freed Barnes to shoot from close range, but the Newport keeper, Townsend, did well.
I don’t think that Newport had a substantive touch of the ball in City’s box for the entire half. Their big centre forward, Bogle, actually held the ball up pretty well when he had the chance, but no attacking moves were created.
It looked set to continue in similar manner until half-time, until in the 44th minute Justin did something he can do from today’s position rather easier than the left-back position he has played recently in League matches. After a myriad of short passes on the right, Justin cut inside and curled an unstoppable shot past the keeper from 20-yeards with his left foot. The goal was the least City deserved for a totally dominant half of football. For those of you who saw the Soumaré Wiggle from the Everton match, shown during Match of the Day 2 this weekend, it was a delight to see Perez go up to Soumaré and do the same Wiggle in celebration for the goal (other than to say that it involves the hips, I am not going to attempt to describe it – check it out online).
The second half was a bit more balanced, but only a bit. City were arguably guilty of being complacent early in the half, with passes going astray and giving Newport some reason to believe they might still be in the match. From one such stray pass, a throw from Iversen, Justin got into a tangle with an opponent – all totally legal and innocuous-looking, but as soon as he sat up, he signalled to the bench that he needed to be replaced and after a few minutes’ stoppage he was stretchered from the pitch. We can only hope it is nothing as serious as that implies, as he has been playing well and has even had people pencilling him in for one of the injury-hit full-back positions in England’s World Cup squad.
Prior to that, Newport had managed their first shot on goal in the 53rd minute and hit the post a few minutes later with a header that really should have been goal-bound – although it would not have counted as the Assistant Referee had correctly flagged for offside.
Justin’s departure coincided with several other substitutions: Albrighton took the right-back slot, Iheanacho replaced Perez, with the system staying unchanged (which meant that Iheanacho was taking corners) and Tielemans replaced Soumaré. Newport also made a number of changes to try to get something from the game.
The result of all these changes was two-fold. Newport did manage to create a few more attacking opportunities, but more importantly, City began to look a far more effective attacking unit, with Tielemans, in particular, playing incisive forward passes repeatedly. The Newport keeper reacted well to smother a Vardy one-on-one, he also tipped a trademark Barnes shot over the bar.
Eventually, the pressure had to tell, and Vardy was the man to do it. Clearly, no-one had briefed the Newport fans that, over the years, chants about Mrs Vardy have more often than not resulted in Vardy goals. The ever-green number 9 demonstrated that with a lovely goal which was something of a blast from the past. Albrighton looping a goldilocks cross – not too hard not too soft – towards the penalty spot for Vardy to glance a header past the keeper inside the far post. It could have been 2015/16 all over again and was a deserved goal for City, and Vardy’s, efforts in the match.
It was pretty unlikely that the visitors were going to pull back a two-goal deficit in the last twenty minutes, but to their credit they did keep pushing forward and were far more effective in City’s half of the pitch than they had been in the first half. Of particular note was a number of ‘proper’ long-throw-ins into the City box, most caused no problems at all for the Home defence; the one that did resulted in a header that went just wide of the goal.
In the 77th minute Faes was replaced by the forgotten man, Vestergaard, and Ndidi was replaced by Braybrooke, a new face making his first team debut.
City’s third goal was a thing of beauty. Given the hard time he has had since joining the Club, it is worth noting that it began with a strong Vestergaard headed clearance following an attacking free kick by Newport. Barnes took possession in midfield and ran straight at the Newport defence, he then played a perfectly weighted pass through and behind that defence for Vardy to race on to, check, turn the keeper inside out and then fire the ball into the net past the desperate attempts of Newport defenders to block on the line. Another recognisably ‘Leicester/Vardy’ goal to make it three-nil and game over.
The Newport fans kept singing until the end. Vardy had given them his usual waves once he had scored … all was good with the world.
A solid performance that keeps City’s result good run of results going, with things to admire from old faces and from new – although we must hope that Justin’s injury is not as bad as it might be.
Leicester City
Iversen, Justin, Evans, Faes, Thomas, Soumaré, Ndidi, Pérez, Praet, Barnes, Vardy
Substitutes
Tielemans, Albrighton, Smithies, Iheanacho, Amartey, Daka, Vestergaard, Mendy, Braybrooke
Newport County
Townsend, Norman, Farquharson, Demetriou, Lewis, Moriah-Welsh, Dolan, Waite, Lewis, Bogle, Collins
Substitutes
Day, Bowen, Bennett, Zimba, Nevers, Lindley, Bright, Evans, Karadogan
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