Brendan Rodgers had a full mix of a squad, including young faces such as Vontae Daley-Campbell and Callum Wright, both starting the game. The two teenagers had a “look in” as a number of players are still absent and will return back next week.
Ayoze Perez was not involved, not Rachid Ghezzal or Eldin Jakupovic either, handing over the glows to Danny Ward. Perez reported to be out with a minor injury.
The U.23’s had an outing yesterday were players such as Daniel Iversen and Connor Tee were involved. Khanya Leshabela was not involved today or yesterday, neither Josh Knight.
This is pre-season and as Brendan Rodgers said in the interview after the game you need to be on your toes all the time, which probably Leicester City was not when Cheltenham took the lead after 16 minutes.
Leicester born, and former Quorn player Luke Varney scored the opening goal. The 36 year old still knows where the goal is. Varney has a past at clubs such as Crewe, Charlton, Derby, Leeds and Blackburn among those, joining Cheltenham from Burton Albion a year ago, he has so far scored 14 goal in 30 league games for “The Robins”.
Leicester City had to repair the damage from first half and made a full change of their team as expected, bringing on Vardy and Albrighton and together with Youri Tielemans they all produced enough to get things back on track.
First it was Vardy who scored from a Tielemans pass after 68 minutes, a nice touch by both as the equalizer went in. Marc Albrighton surprisingly took a run in up front as he passed two Cheltenham defenders and scored with a well placed shot, firstly rounding the goalkeeper, a really nice goal.
Cheltenham produced nothing in the 2nd half as the “foxes” lot coming on for 2nd half really pushed for more and showed enough quality to get the goals needed to keep pre-season running with a “full strike” so far.
Steve Guppy was the expert reporter of the day and he liked Youri Tielemans and of course also given credit to Jamie Vardy who is pushing for goals as fast as he enters a football field.
A 16 year old debutant made his mark as well, Ethan Fitzhugh played a few minutes until the end after coming on for Layton Ndukwu, making his mark with a shot from distance and also doing a few good runs and passes.
Brendan Rodgers said in an interview after the game that he was satisfied with the performance, pleased to see Jamie Vardy as sharp so early and also talking about players soon to arrive back and of course preparing for new match against Cambridge next on the 23rd of July.
The game and the stats showed really the gap between the two teams being three divisions, but only one goal more in the protocol not really enough goals scored with that type of domination.
To sum it all up,
- Positives:
- Vardy and Albrighton contribution and goals
- Tielemans made a good impression in midfield
- Winning
- Able to get back after being 1-0 down
- Giving youth a look in
- Negatives:
- Not looking as sharp as you should in the first 45
- Not able to convert more chances and play into goals
- Player Ratings: Ward 5. Daley-Campbell 5, Elder 6, Maguire 6, Morgan 6, King 6, Thomas 6, Iheanacho 4, Amartey 4, Wright 5, Muskwe 5, Subs: Justin 6, Pereira 6, Soyuncu 6, Evans 7, Fuchs 5, Ndukwu 4, Fitzhugh 5, Vardy 7, Albrighton 7, Mendy 5, Tielemans 7
Match Stats: H/A
- Possession: 28 / 72
- Corners: 1 / 9
- Shots on target: 0 / 4
- Shots wide: 2 / 9
- Fouls: 7 / 7
- Offsides: 3 / 1
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