A platform for youth
As predicted, new boss Marti Cifuentes unsurprisingly made wholesale changes from the weekend championship team, although less than some expected. Four players - Jakub Stolarczyk, Luke Thomas, Boubakary Soumare and Oliver Skipp – kept their places. Starting, too, were three youngsters – Ben Nelson, Will Alves, and Jeremy Monga. On the bench were a further three academic products Louis Page, Silko Thomas and Olabade Aluko.
The best and worst of Hamza Choudhury
Leicester twice took the lead only to be dragged back by the South Yorkshire side. Hamza Choudhury played a big part at both ends of the pitch. All the goals came in the second half after a poor first period in which the Foxes failed to have an attempt on target and were lucky not to go behind when a Huddersfield striker looked like he had been upended in the box by Ben Nelson. Choudhury scored a stunner in the 54th minute after patient build-up play. Ten minutes later, the Leicester right-back recklessly slid in to give away a penalty. Harry Winks then put City back ahead only for Huddersfield to equalise when Choudhury or a midfield player backtracking failed to press Cameron Ashia who was allowed to drift into the box and pick his spot.
Penalties, of course, are a lottery but it has to be said that the, failed, attempts of Jordan Ayew and Kasey McAteer were very poor. The Foxes, deservedly, are out of the cup at the first hurdle.
Predicting the future
Identifying reserve players who performed well is particularly important as uncertainty hangs over the continued presence of many established Leicester stars such as Bilal El Khannouss, Harry Winks, and Abdul Fatawu amongst others. In the sense, the encounter with Huddersfield was a real wake-up call. My judgement is that those players on the fringes of the first team are either not good enough or not yet ready to play at this level. And that's not saying anything about some of the first-team regulars who do not appear to be up to the required standard.
In the 'not good enogh' category, Kasey McAteer had a very poor game and is several levels below Fatawu. Patson Daka, too, was, yet again, totally ineffective. Both were given five out of ten by Jordan Blackwell in the Leicester Mercury but these marks are extremely generous to say the least. In the not ready category, Monga had a decent game before being substituted at the hour mark with some tricky wing play but little in the way of an end product. Page, who came on at half time for the anonymous Alves also did okay. We can’t expect much more from very young players.
Overall, though, admittedly only on the basis of what we have witnessed at this very early stage of the season, it seems unlikely that Leicester will have enough to mount a promotion challenge, particularly if they lose more players before the close of the transfer window and the expected points deduction materialises.