Brentford 1 City 1
Report by Kate Thompson
I didn’t travel to this game with much hope. Fortunately, despite the national rail strike, there was a limited service from my local station. The talking point when the teams were announced was Iverson starting instead of Ward, but on this showing, it is difficult to gauge his effectiveness, as the defence stood firm for most of the match.
In bright sunshine City started equally brightly but had to withstand quite a barrage from Brentford, particularly from set pieces – a bit of a problem for City this season. After about ten or 15 minutes they got a grip on the game and went close on two occasions, from Barnes and Daka.
When Brentford scored, it took two deflections although I didn’t realise this until later as it was scored at the end furthest from the City supporters, in the 32nd minute. To my disappointment the City fans, who had been very supportive of the team up till then, relapsed into the moaning and negativity, which in my opinion does not help one iota.
City came out in the second half with a lot of fight and equalised in the 52nd minute, a well-deserved goal. Dewsbury-Hall battled to keep the ball and put in a good pass to Maddison, who brilliantly slipped the ball through to Barnes to score his ninth goal of the season.
At this stage City looked much more like the team we want to see and the fickle fans got back on side and roared the team on. City looked more likely to score a winner but, in the end, had to settle for a point, but one that might prove crucial at the end of the season.
I was pleased that Amartey, who has come in for a lot of flack this season, much of it deserved, had a steady game and Souttar was a rock at the back. It is so gratifying to have a very tall player who can head balls away with ease.
Tete seemed livelier than he has been in recent games and in truth nobody had a poor game. Maddison was on the end of some crunching tackles and it seemed that on at least two occasions a foul was given against him when he had been the innocent party. Unfortunately he clearly said something to the referee on the first occasion and was booked for his pains. He was substituted in the 90th minute before he could pick up another yellow, and replaced by Iheanacho.
The Brentford player Baptiste, who had only come on in the 75th minute, picked up two yellow cards in fairly quick succession and was sent off in time added on at the end of the game – too late to make any difference to the score. The other Leicester substitutes were Praet for Tete and Vardy for Daka in the 66th minute and Soumare for Ndidi in the 74th.
Reading some match reports later, it appeared that when Rodgers went over to the Leicester fans at the end of the game, some idiots were holding up a banner calling for him to be sacked, only for some more sensible supporters pulling it down; I wasn’t aware of that, nor of the apparent booing by some idiots. You might not like what you see but Brentford are a good team who have only lost at home to Arsenal this season, and surely we support our players when we can see that they are doing their best.
One final point: at least two people in front of me were smoking; at the end of the game I approached one of the Leicester stewards to ask why it had not been dealt with. She said that she hadn’t seen it, but I find this hard to believe. Rant over!
Brentford: Raya; Hickey, Pinnock, Mee, Henry; Norgaard, Jensen (Baptiste 74), Damsgaard (Dasilva 61); Mbeumo (Jansson 90+4), Wissa (Schade 61), Toney. Subs not used: Strakosha, Zanka, Ghoddos, Onyeka, Stevens.
City: Iversen; Pereira, Amartey, Souttar, Castagne; Ndidi (Soumare 74), Dewsbury-Hall, Maddison (Iheanacho. 90); Tetê (Praet 66), Daka (Vardy 66), Barnes. Subs (not used): Ward. Thomas, Mendy, Brunt, Marcal-Madivadua.
Ref: Darren Bond Attendance: 17,006
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