Foxes player ratings in Leicester 1-2 Villa

Still no win for Steve Cooper’s Leicester side as they succumbed to a Villa side who, for large parts of the second half, were pushed back on the defensive resorting to feigning injury and wasting time. It had looked for a long time that the Villans would canter to a comfortable win with the Foxes offering little going forward in the first half and Mads Hermansen keeping his team in the game with a couple of good saves from England striker Ollie Watkins. Eventually, on the 30th minute mark, a cleverly-worked free kick, following a disputed foul by Oliver Skipp, ended with Amadou Onana stabbing the ball home.

For the first part of the second half in particular Leicester laid siege on the Villa goal creating little but keeping the attacking momentum going. In a rare excursion up the pitch, however, substitute Jhon Duran doubled Villa’s lead with a well-directed header. The home side continued battling and, after a wonderful piece of wing play by substitute Stephy Mavididi, the on-loan Brighton midfielder Fucundo Buaonotte pulled one back from close range. 

The Foxes thought they had equalised when Vardy knocked the ball in but the referee David Coote (who had a poor game and was justifiably booed off by Foxes’ fans at the end of the contest) had already whistled as the ball had hit him on the way through. As the Daily Mirror reported, former referee Mike Dean argued that, by the letter of the law, Coote’s decision was the right one by the letter of the law but others in the Sky Sports studio suggested the referee's positional sense was at fault in the first place.

A couple of penalty shouts involving Jamie Vardy were all that Leicester could muster as they went down to another defeat. In the first, Coote actually blew for a spot kick before realising that Vardy had been flagged offside In the second, the referee adjudicated that Youri Tielemans (returning to the King Power for the first time since his move to Villa last year) had won the ball. The fact that the assistant referee then flagged for a throw in to Villa mystified Leicester fans. With millions of pounds at stake at this level of football, officials have really got to be better than this. 

One point from three games is an ominously poor return for the Foxes but the performance against Villa was generally good and, with the new signings integrated into the team, there is still some optimism that Leicester might still have a chance of avoiding the drop this season.