Leicester 0, Slavia Prague 2, positives and negatives, player ratings, and match report

Dropping Harvey Barnes from the starting line-up is a strange approach, also to see neither Timothy Castagne or Ricardo Pereira from start is also strange, considering their strengths and skills, and laying a load on a player like Chengiz Under in such a game, he has hardly been on the field so far. Strange as it was, it became.

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This looked strange from start and you could easily see that the team was not composed in a way that would look as an underestimation of Slavia Prague and they showed their quality in the first half, not giving Leicester any gaps to use and really playing to their best.

The first half was a dull affair, but still we believed that Leicester would fix this and what was needed was a goal and that hope was of course there, but there were no chances for Jamie Vardy as his day became close to a nightmare.

Coming out second half, strangely enough Slavia looked the sharpest and they destroyed all hope of Leicester to go through to the next round when they scored after 49 minutes.

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With three substitutions done a few minutes after Slavia had scored we surely believed that the trio Harvey Barnes, Ricardo Pereira and Timothy Castagne could getting this in the right direction, but this was all wrong with Pereira slotting in to a central midfield role, trying some quasi system that no one could figure out.

Instead of Leicester scoring, Slavia used the babble of Rodgers to score a second goal and secure their place in the next round. Instead of going for more power up front and giving Iheanacho a few minutes, Rodgers gave Sidnei Tavares his debut coming on in the 80th minute. What the plan was behind this move, must have given up and just giving the boy his first team debut.

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As a fan you would expect more, and to see first team players such as Iheanacho and Mendy just being left on the bench and overlooked is difficult to accept. Difficult to understand how a manager of this calibre can just ignore the opponent and miss totally, strange.

We have to hope that this was a glip that changing too much, resting his best players and just place a random eleven out there is not good enough to win against a team like Slavia Prague. Good luck to Slavia and what a great result it must have been for them, they deserved it fully and was the real heroes today.

• Positives
  • Giving Sidnei Tavares a few minutes, when the battle was lost, hopefully we will see him again in the first team
  • No injuries
• Negatives:
  • The selection of players, dropping Harvey Barnes for such an important game
  • Brendan Rodgers, what was his game plan?
  • Not using all five subs, sorry but that is a signal that isn’tacceptable

• Player Ratings: Schmeichel 5, Amartey 3, Soyuncu 5, Evans 5, Thomas 5, Tielemans 5, Ndidi 5, Under 5, Choudhury 3, Vardy 3, Albrighton 4 Subs: Pereira, Castagne, Barnes, Tavares

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• Leicester City, Man of the Match
  • Youri Tielemans

Match Stats (H/A):

• Possession: 62 / 38
• Corners: 5 / 5
• Shots on target: 3 / 3
• Fouls: 8 / 15