Having effectively blown hopes of a Europa League journey for next season as Leicester lost to Burnley in our recent game, we welcomed Mark Hughes’ struggling Southampton to the King Power Stadium yesterday evening looking to get back to winning ways.
Claude Puel’s side did draw a line under the previous defeat in this game as we secured a scoreless draw on the night, but it wasn’t the three points fans had been hoping for.
The Frenchman also took the opportunity to tinker with little riding on the result and fans in attendance saw a 4-4-1-1 experiment with Marc Albrighton deployed on the right side of a back four – however it didn’t seem to blunt his attacking prowess and he created several chances for Jamie Vardy in the second period, but otherwise it wasn’t great on the eye and there was little to shout about.
With a couple of games remaining in 2017/18 Leicester do sit on 44 points and that was of course what we ended the 2016/17 campaign on, so for some that will give rise to optimism once Puel gets a better chance to stamp his mark on the squad given the style of play he prefers.
The BBC quote Puel as saying post game.
“We are a little bit disappointed not to win but I’m happy with our performance. It was important to continue the momentum from the second half against Burnley and I think we did that. We showed a lot of quality and had two or three good chances to score in the first half and we played with a good tempo and intensity. If we can repeat this performance in the next game against Crystal Palace we will do well.”
Puel also confirmed that Kasper Schmeichel will be back for the next match, but he was full of praise of Ben Hamer’s performance as he took his place between the sticks.
King Power Stadium
Premier League
19/04/2018 8:45 pm
Attendance: 31160
Referee: East
| Leicester City | Southampton | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hamer | McCarthy | ||||||
| Dragovic | Bednarek | ||||||
| Maguire | Yoshida | ||||||
| Chilwell | Hoedt | ||||||
| Gray | 91 | Soares | |||||
| Adrien Silva | 91 | Romeu | |||||
| Ndidi | Hojbjerg | 88 | |||||
| Albrighton | Bertrand | ||||||
| Mahrez | Ward-Prowse | 58 | |||||
| Iheanacho | 76 | Tadic | |||||
| Vardy | Long | 73 | |||||
Substitutes |
|||||||
| Simpson | Davis | 58 | |||||
| Morgan | Austin | 73 | |||||
| Jakupovic | Gabbiadini | ||||||
| Fuchs | Redmond | 88 | |||||
| Barnes | 91 | Pied | |||||
| Diabate | 76 | Sims | |||||
| Choudhury | 91 | Forster | |||||
Game Statistics |
||
| 11 | Goal attempts | 6 |
| 3 | On Target | 2 |
| 11 | Corners | 3 |
| 10 | Fouls | 10 |
| 0 | Yellow Cards | 0 |
| 0 | Red Cards | 0 |
| 54 | % | 46 |