Review of Leicester City 1 - 0 Reading

Article by Jonathan Smith

They say a week is a long time in football. If that’s the case, 19 days is practically a lifetime. That’s how long it’s been since Leicester City slipped to a second consecutive league defeat; a 3-1 away loss against Brighton. Doom and gloom was beginning to gather amongst Foxes fans having seen their side relinquish top spot almost as soon as they’d acquired it. The fixture list wasn’t looking too forgiving either with fellow promotion-chasers Burnley and QPR next up. Leicester managed to stop the rot with a home draw against the Lancashire outfit before becoming the first team to beat QPR at Loftus Road in the league this season. City did bow out of the Capital One Cup at the Quarter-Final stage but didn’t disgrace themselves against Premiership title contenders Manchester City.

City found themselves just outside the top two going into their Boxing day home fixture against Reading. Having suffered relegation from the top flight last season, many expected a promotion challenge from Reading this campaign but they have been somewhat inconsistent so far. Either way, they have some talented individuals who were bound to test Leicester.

Leicester dominated for much of the first half and played some good football. For the second match running, a City match saw an unusual first half incident; this time no wild animals were involved. A power failure resulted in the floodlights at the King Power Stadium cutting out briefly. Thankfully, power was restored and there was no need to consider abandoning the fixture. The home supporters did their best to provide light during the period of darkness by illuminating their mobile phones and shining them in the direction of the pitch. In terms of the football, Leicester’s dominance paid off after 21 minutes when Anthony Knockaert won a penalty and David Nugent dispatched it. It was City’s ninth penalty in the league this season; most coming following penetrating runs into the opposition box from speed merchants such as Jamie Vardy, Ritchie de Laet and Lloyd Dyer. Danny Drinkwater has won two penalties for the side; a valuable contribution despite one of them resulting in a miss against Nottingham Forest.

Reading did score in the second half but Pavel Pogrebnyak’s header was ruled out. The Russian was adjudged to have been in an offside position. Leicester managed to hold on to their 1-0 lead and claimed another three points towards their automatic promotion push.

Burnley suffered a 1-0 defeat against Middlesbrough and QPR lost 2-0 to Nottingham Forest to round off a great Boxing day for Foxes fans who can bask in the glory of being top of the table again. That could all change on Sunday with another full schedule of Championship football coming-up. Leicester will play host to Bolton Wanderers who started the season in woeful form but have started to turn things around now. For now though, let’s enjoy that ‘top of the table’ feeling!