Leicester City Football Club met Cheltenham for an FA Cup Third Round fixture on Saturday lunchtime. Though, as you can probably tell from my rather clunky title pun, this area of England in Gloucestershire is more famous for horse racing. Cheltenham Racecourse hosts National Hunt horse racing. Thankfully City didn't have another mare in this competition like they did in the League Cup (Carabao Cup) against Huddersfield Town earlier on this season.
Indeed, I would label LCFC's odd performance versus the Terriers as the point early foreshadowing, or a red flag, was placed over the tender tenure of Foxes manager Marti Cifuentes. However, Leicester won the race at EV Charger Points Stadium this weekend; the Blue Army fan base would be buoyed, or stadium jumping, by a lovely cup run! But now it is time to examine how the City stars and back-up players got on in the match specifically. Having a look at each and every Fox helps clear the hay and gauge the display.
Leicester City had the usual winners and losers from the clash with Cheltenham Town - some hoofed it while others stayed on course
Cifuentes put the reins on a number of peripheral personnel for this one; while stabling eight of his men from the previous outing. Though it was Robins boss Steve Cotterill who was still left with a long face after the final whistle, as Leicester won 2-0.
These Foxes were cited as good or decent by Leicester Mercury: Asmir Begovic (7), Ben Nelson (7), Luke Thomas (7), Hamza Choudhury (7), Oliver Skipp (7), Louis Page (7), Stephy Mavididi (8).
Meanwhile Jordan Ayew, Jeremy Monga and Caleb Okoli were all handed '5s' - which is a bit pony. The remainder of the starting XI and substitutes received satisfactory 6s.
"Stephy Mavididi: The best player on the pitch. His flicks and tricks seemed half-hearted early on, but it was a great piece of skill and cute pass to set up Daka, and his confidence grew from there, the winger scoring a brilliant goal to double the lead. 8"Leicester Mercury
(See if you can count the amount of equestrian double entendres hidden as Easter Eggs in this piece - and then go and comment on how irritating it was on social media.)