Ricardo Pereira and Conor Coady were both dropped, giving starts to James Justin and Hamza Choudhury, as the two made good covers and especially Justin showed special quality, probably telling his manager why he was picked for England duty a while back.
This was a tricky game against a club that are in reach of a play-off position, and watching Leicester go out to play the game as they did, taking the control from start, was nice to see.
Not much happening in the first minutes of the game, with Leicester just pushing the ball around and Cardiff not really given an invite. Then it all exploded as Leicester put more momentum on their offensive attempts, ending in that beautiful goal scored by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, being assisted by in form winger Abdul Fatawu.
Stephy Mavididi had a slow start to the game but eventually came to his chances, so did Fatawu, but no more goals first half, Leicester having the lead 1-0.
2nd half Leicester put pressure on from start, and as the ball bounced into the feet of James Justin in the 55th minute, scoring with a perfect placed curle into the net from 25 yards, what a fantastic goal to score, showing Justin having a lot in his bag also producing fantastic goals from distance. Leicester were 2-0 up after 55 minutes.
Cardiff tried to put some sort of pressure on Leicester, but they were soft in their build up and with Vestergaard and Faes having it all controlled, Hermansen also playing safely today, so it could have been more goals for Leicester as Mavadidi should have scored, but he hit the post on one occasion and just wide on another massive chance.
Patson Daka also had a massive chance to score from a Abdul Fatawu shot, that hit the post and came out to the Zambian international, but today he was not lucky with his chance, as he just shot it up in the air, instead of taking it down and just pass it into the net.
A great day for defenders, keeping a clean sheet, having it all steady and well organized, a good shit put in for midfielders and up front wingers showed what they are made of, with a bit of a dipper from Daka and later Tom Cannon, coming on, but looks far from standard and cannot see him doing the job up front when Iheanacho and Daka leaves for interational duty.
Casadei was also put into play, replacing Wilfred Ndidi after 69 minutes and not really getting a look in, as his workrate and involvement looks far from what is needed to get this train on track, Maresca needs to find the formula for Casadei, as his performances are not up to the level needed to keep the momentum going forward.
A 2-0 win makes us all satisfied and today we couldn’t ask for more, it was a perfect day away.
Leicester showed everyone today why they are top of the Championship table as they now are flying 8 points above Ipswich and 11 points clear to the third team, Southampton. 62 points is just a phenomenal tally after 25 games, very impressive.
- Positives
- Keeping it controlled at the back, shows quality and determination
- Dewsbury-Hall setting the pace, again the engine we need in the middle
- James Justin’s goal, what a cracker, fantastic to see him score, giving Maresca answers
- Faes and Vestergaard back together, no reason to split them up, they are a glued partnership
- Abdul Fatawu and Stephy Mavadidi going from strength to strength
- Negatives
- Tom Cannon again given minutes without showing anyone he can be an alternative up front
- Patson Daka having another game where he is far from standard, should have scored
Player Ratings: Hermansen 6, Justin 8, Choudhury 6, Vestergaard 7, Faes 7, Dewsbury-Hall 7, Winks 6, Daka 4, Mavididi 7, Fatawu 8, Ndidi 6 Subs: Casadei, Cannon
- Leicester City, Man of the Match
- James Justin
Match Stats (H/A)
- Possession: 36 / 64
- Shots on Target: 2 / 4
- Corners: 5 / 2
- Fouls: 11 / 7
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