Foxes of Leicester
Fansided

Gillingham 0-1 Leicester: 3 things FoL learned

By Damon Carter

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This image has been converted into black and white) Caglar Soyuncu and Jannik Vestergaard of Leicester City before the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match vs Gillingham (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images)
(EDITOR'S NOTE: This image has been converted into black and white) Caglar Soyuncu and Jannik Vestergaard of Leicester City before the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match vs Gillingham (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images) /
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Leicester City
(EDITOR’S NOTE: This image has been converted into black and white) Caglar Soyuncu and Jannik Vestergaard of Leicester City before the Emirates FA Cup Third Round match vs Gillingham (Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images) /

A Third Round trip to the team sat bottom of the football league was never going to be something to get excited about. The BBC cameras smelt Premier League blood as they assembled with a voyeuristic thirst for top-flight prey. So what three things did Leicester City learn from this giant banana skin?

Cup runs exacerbate a bare-bones squad

With the Premier League campaign going flatter than New Year’s Eve champagne, many Leicester City fans welcomed some cup action to forget three consecutive defeats. Brendan Rodgers was also keen to extend his largely positive cup pedigree with the Foxes. But with the squad decimated by injuries and players lacking fitness, two cup games in the space of three and a half days possibly isn’t the tonic needed to bring back the fizz.

This dictated a lot of Rodgers thinking with the team selection for this game. The entire back five was plucked from the reserves. Caglar Soyuncu and Jannik Vestergaard made for an unlikely centre-back partnership with Lewis Brunt and Kasey McAteer drafted in for rare appearances as attacking full-backs.

Further up the pitch, Nampalys Mendy partnered Youri Tielemans in the middle and surprisingly Jamie Vardy started with Kelechi Iheanacho up top as a two. The bench was littered with first-team players but with substitutes only being made after the 80th minute and only three being used it showed Brendan’s reluctance to utilise players he will no doubt be calling upon at a Carabao Cup quarter-final at Newcastle in the week.

The play itself lacked energy and dynamism as if they were deliberately trying to win the game in no higher than 3rd gear to save tiring legs, or perhaps even worse they were unable to go beyond those levels. Gillingham gave a lot of huff and puff and with a bit more luck may have caused LCFC more problems, but a club that has only managed seven league goals this far into a season will struggle to cause many teams problems.