Leicester 0-2 Manchester City: Encouraging signs not enough for Foxes
By James Lassey
Foxes become another name to City’s ever-growing list of destruction following their 2-0 loss to Pep Guardiola’s side.
Claude Puel talked about his Leicester side as a project for evolution and this loss will serve as a gruelling lesson into accepting the ways of fate.
Despite an encouraging opening half hour, Manchester City were too good for the Foxes and the hosts can take no shame from their display.
The Foxes still have not beaten a side placed top of the pile for 19 years despite their performance showing a sense of grit, determination and desire. While murmurings of Manchester City going the season undefeated surfaced this week, City dictated and overwhelmed Puel’s men.
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Kevin De Bruyne, David Silva and Leroy Sane swayed the Foxes defence like a punch-drunk boxer on his last legs.
Even if they had fielded another six players over their Manchester counterparts, I still fear this team would have ran riot.
How do you stifle a team that have just matched the top-flight record of points after 12 games and who have scored a mighty 40 goals in the process?
Leicester started strongly and signs of Puel’s progress were there to be seen. He was lucky not to have taken the impetus. The game was masked with early controversy, striker Jamie Vardy broke clear of Manchester City’s defence and Vincent Kompany came across and deemed to bring the Englishman down with no covering defender beyond them. A challenge which resulted with a yellow card, not the red it warranted.
Riyad Mahrez and Demarai Gray continued to show their attacking potency, Mahrez danced down the right in the first half but City’s second-half dominance soon silenced the Algerian. For Gray, his head to head footraces with fellow England international Kyle Walker seemed too much for the 21-year-old to bear.
City’s first goal was another page to Guardiola’s book of exhilarating finishes. The ball pinged left to right off Sane’s boot to Raheem Sterling then De Bruyne to Silva. The latter dinked a sumptuous ball into the finishing Gabriel Jesus. A goal which had long been coming.
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It took a season for Guardiola to drill in his training regimes, his intricacies and his demand for attacking football, now we are witnessing the results. Lets hope Puel can do the same.
The second was not so much a testament to their passing display but a mistake by the Foxes defence. The error of leaving a player with the ability of De Bruyne so much space. He was given room to dispatch a stunner from outside the box, a strike which despite Schmeichel’s best efforts could not be stopped.
For Leicester, a defeat which needs to be dismissed by Puel and abruptly brushed under the carpet. Even if Kompany had been relieved from his duties, whether Leicester could have came away with anything is highly unlikely. They were outplayed and outclassed by their visitors, just like the 10 other Premier League teams who were succumbed to their brilliance and came out worse for wear.
Leicester now head into Friday’s game against West Ham and sit four points off the relegation zone.