There’s no denying it is there?
This is a tough game, away to what I called the most complete side we’ve played this season and frankly I’m just wondering how many we’re going to lose by.
Squad news and Leicester are very comfortable. Wes Morgan and Filip Benkovic both came off injured on Saturday, but they were only back up defenders playing in a side that had been much rotated. Otherwise they’re all good and Jamie Vardy has recovered from a tight calf. We could have done without him starting, but no such luck for the Villa eh?
I’m sure I don’t need to tell anyone that we have Heaton, Targett, McGinn and Wesley all out injured and that’s a major part of our first eleven.
And it’s frankly so much of the side, that I’m sorry, but I don’t think we have a prayer tonight, with it probably only being a case of trying to keep the score down.
The good news is that Tyrone Mings is fit, but Kienan Davis is apparently not even training, so we have Kodjia as our only option up front.
That’s not necessarily a problem in itself, if we can go back to how we were playing earlier in the season, where lots of players were chipping in with goals, but that looks unlikely given that we seem to have so many players out of form or lacking confidence.
So I don’t see us getting many goals; maybe one.
Leicester are another story.
I can see them scoring plenty, if they’re on fire.
Will Smith go 3/5 at the back again?
I think I’d be tempted to do so, in the hope of only suffering a one goal deficit, but I can see Smith deciding to go for it and apply his general “the best form of defence is attack” type of play.
In which case, I think I’m going to go for a 1-3 loss.
I worry that it could be a lot worse than that, to be honest, which means that the return leg would be pretty meaningless.
Hence I hope it’s a close result, because League cup semi finals invoke brilliant memories at Villa Park.
Fingers crossed, then.
Grealish was on his haunches then.
Doesn’t look comfortable.
Mind you, nor would I, with our setup.
Going to ask the same question Badger – is Grealish OK or maybe not fully well?
Grealish not driving forward with the ball. I think he’s got a problem
So do I.
El Ghazi booked for a poor tackle, but nice to see him working backwards.
I’m finding this game quite intriguiging.
We ain’t bottling it, up to now.
playing better now. no need to get giddy and try to pass forwards quick. laos mings shouting at our goalie cause he keeps kicking or throwing long and losing the ball. pick our moments to counter
that had to be two nil no way how did that no go in.
A bit of showboating by 3 players to get out of a tight spot.
It’s like Smith has told them to totally not worry about the outcome.
I’m loving it.
And then we hit the bar.
And that’s HT.
I think we’ve done pretty well and it should have been 2-0.
Even if we lose here, if we can maintain that sort of performance, I’ll be reasonably happy.
Grealish has energy in bursts then has to recover. Suspect he maybe not 100% well.
3 CH’s again – BFR take a bow – but what a difference Mings makes bossing the back line.
Mings is ace today. well 1/2 time and still in it. I’m loving it.
Great half! I think without Kodjia the mindset of the front three midfielders is to work harder and get up the field. We have 11 to their 11 instead of it being like 10 when Kodjia plays. We will have to work much harder though ths half and stay awake they will come flying at us.
much better than i predicted so far. we did much better towards the last third of that half with the ball. we started to play it safely and not too long. with us having 5 deep and sometimes 7. we had no out balls so it tended to keep coming back at us. mings had a benny at goalie cause he was guilty of too many wayward distribution.
second half will be back to the wall leciiester will switch to back four as they have three marking nobody at times. we might find more chances to break but must not commit to many to attack. vardy has the beating of our defenders
Prepare for 2nd half onslaught. Make sure we start off well and don’t give them something to lift their crowd.
It has amazed me how we have contain Leicester, let’s get another and its Man City here we come.
Nyland looking very confident these days.
Mings has been immense up to now, in defending the defenders!
We can’t keep this up and a defender, probably Mings is going to fuck up.
Smith must have told them to try and contain it.
The way it’s going, we’re going to concede.
Nyland very impressive.
Hourihane on – looking for a free kick around Leicester’s box – if we ever get there 🙂
Hourihane on for Trezuguet. Interesting, to say the least.
Looking for a counter?
One or two sloppy passing now from us, Jack just been brought down , looks like he’s tired now, walking a lot.