Former friends
The Foxes could have been facing several former players in Tuesday evening’s encounter. No less than five players in the Wrexham squad previously plied their trade at the King Power Stadium – Matty James, Conor Coady, Danny Ward, Lewis Brunt and Callum Doyle. However, with Ward injured and Coady, James and Doyle out of favour, only Brunt (who played twice for the Foxes) started, with James coming on as a second half substitute.
Two points dropped
The last and only occasion that Wrexham have beaten the Foxes was a 1-0 victory in a League Cup tie on September 1st 1976, 43 years ago. They have never beaten City in a league game although, to be fair, the two clubs have rarely faced each other. After a few years languishing in the basement of the English football pyramid, the ambitious Welsh club with Hollywood connections are now a different proposition and, although they have had a uninspiring start to the season - with two wins, two draws and three defeats in their opening seven games, it looked likely that they wouldn’t be a pushover for Leicester on Tuesday evening.
With an unchanged team for the last two drawn matches, the Leicester boss Marti Cifuentes was expected to make some changes to his side, particularly given the quick turaround of fixtures. The extent of the changes had, pre-match, been disputed. Those who predicted widescale changes were correct. Hamza Choudhury came in for Ricard Pereira at right back, Jordan James moved into central midfiled in place of Boubakary Soumare, Bobby De Cordova-Reid played in the number 10 role and Jeremy Monga made his first league start in place of Stephy Mavididi.
In what most fans would agree was the team’s worst performance of the season, the Foxes stuttered to a 1-1 draw against a hard-working and tough tackling, but ultimately limited, opponent. Leicester took the lead after 36 minutes through a cleverly worked goal, after a one-two with Patson Daka, from Jordan James, his first for the club. By that time, the Welsh outfit had missed two eminently presentable chances. The home team had plenty of possession (68% in the match as a whole) but quality was in short supply.
In the second half, Leicester had most of the ball but created very little. In general, the build-up was often too slow, and the full backs didn’t provide enough support for the wingers who were marked out of the game. In the 77th minute, a mistake by Jannik Vestergaard wide on the right allowed a cross to be knocked in by Wrexhan’s Nathan Broadhead, the Welsh club’s only shot on target.
The boos emanating from the home fans at the final whistle was a valid reaction to this disappointing result and performance. That’s four consecutive draws. Whilst the stalemate at the Hawthorns last weekend was a point gained, the outcome against Wrexham is clearly two points lost.
The problem positions
Since Bilal El Khannouss and Jamie Vardy left the Foxes for Germany and Italy, respectively, Leicester have struggled to replace them in their attacking midfield and striker roles.
In the former, Cifuentes has tried with Louis Page, Jordan James, and Jordan Ayew. None have been particularly effective. On Tuesday evening he selected De Cordova-Reid in the role. The player made a number of useful contributions but should have done much better with a close-range shot in the first half. Ironically, it was James, pushed forward after De Cordova Reid was substituted, who showed the kind of creativity expected of a number 10, when he scored his first half goal.
In terms of the striker role, it was Daka who provided the assist for James’ goal but overall, in his 80 minutes on the pitch, he didn’t really look like getting on the scoresheet. Substitutes Jordan Ayew and Julian Carranza fared little better. As I have written before, the paucity of goals could be a real obstacle to Leicester’s promotion bid.