Foxes storm by 10 men Newcastle! Report by Simon Mack

Newcastle United 0 Leicester City 3

1^st January 2020 3pm

St James Park

The foxes made 6 changes to the side that defeated West Ham on Saturday and cruised past a flagging Newcastle side in one of Leicester’s most one sided games of the season.

Caglar Soyunchu, Wilfred Ndidi, Ricardo, Youri Tielemans, James Maddison and Ben Chilwell all came into the city starting eleven in a ‘wing back’ formation with Chilwell and Ricardo playing the wide roles whilst Fuchs, Soyunchu and Evans played in a trio of central defenders. The system was designed to negate the home side’s own tactics and it worked like a charm as the foxes enjoyed almost 80% of the possession and completely dominated this match. Jamie Vardy was missing from the squad completely having strained a muscle in training and is expected to miss the weekend’s visit of Wigan in the FA Cup too.

Early on in this one Jonny Evans went close to giving the visitors the lead with a point blank save from a superb James Maddison corner that was only stopped by some excellent work from Newcastle keeper Martin Dúbravka and soon after the toon’s Brazilian striker Joelinton managed to find himself in a one on one situation with Kasper Schmeichel but the Dane kept himself big and Caglar Soyunchu helped to mop up the situation. In truth the magpies forays into the city final 3^rd were as rare as a Tyneside derby of late and as the home side’s weary and in some cases partially fit personnel struggled Leicester City could stride forward almost at will.

Despite the foxes dominance it took until just after the half hour for the side placed 2nd in the league table to take the lead. Ayonze Perez latched onto a horror pass across his own box from toon defender Florian Lejeune and despite being under heavy challenge maintained his momentum and rifled the ball into the far corner to put city 1-0 up.

Just 3 minutes later Florian Lejeune gifted the ball back to Leicester once again the in final 3^rd and some neat play to the right of the Newcastle box between Ricardo and Perez saw the Spaniard roll a pass to James Maddison in space on the edge of the Magpie’s box and his resulting unstoppable and breath-taking shot crashed into the top right corner of the net to double city’s lead.

Just before the half it all went wrong for the hosts with Jonjo Shelvey, Dutch defender Jetro Willems and fellow full back Javier Manquillo all suffering injury. Shelvey limped the half out but was replaced at the break using the 3^rd of the hosts 3 substitutions for the match so when Swiss centre back Fabian Schär pulled up with hamstring trouble just a few minutes later Newcastle were forced to play the rest of the match with 10 men.

As the hosts sat deep for the remainder of this match the foxes could keep the ball for as long as they liked and they did just that maintaining possession for large swathes of the half passing it around in full control of events. Demari Gray replaced Iheanacho on the hour then Choudhury was introduced for James Maddison and lastly Wes Morgan came on in place of the superb Jonny Evans. And whilst city had not been smashing at the Newcastle door for a feast of goals the victory was crowed when Hamza Choudhury side footed a superb 20 yard effort into the top corner having been fed a visionary pass from the ever tenacious Wildfred Ndidi. Choudhury had been roundly booed by the home support ever since he had been introduced to the game in relation to his tackle on wide man Matt Ritchie back in August in the Carabao cup. The magpies talented winger hasn’t played since and ‘the toon’ were making their feelings known to the young foxes midfielder but his goal was the final insult to the home support who pretty much on mass upped and left leaving the Leicester players to celebrate a rare goal for their young star.

Despite the foxes winning by larger margins this season this was one of the simplest victories of the season to date. City controlled this match almost from start to finish and with a collection of injuries around half time come the second half the magpies were on the back foot and looking to avoid another drubbing from the foxes.

MOTM? An incredible goal and some sublime passing from James Maddison on the day however for me Ayonze Perez showed strength to score the first and was involved in the creation of the 2^nd and 3^rd goals too and could have added to the score sheet again has he not hesitated and squared the ball when put clean through. This was a return to familiar turf for the city Spaniard and despite some Newcastle fans not being that complimentary about the attacker upon his departure they must have been eating their words as they left St Jame’s Park tonight having seen a superb display from their former top scorer.

It’s onto cup action on Saturday night for the foxes as they play host to Championship Wigan in the 3^rd round of the FA cup then mid-week Aston Villa visit King Power Stadium for a Carabao Cup semi-final 1^st leg. As of tonight Leicester city are 14 points clear of Manchester Utd in 5^th spot and with Southampton at home next up in the league on this form the saints might well be wincing at the thought of another hammering at the hands of the league’s most exiting surprise package.