Ricardo seals the deal! Fa cup Review by Simon Mack!

Leicester City 1 Birmingham City 0

4^th March 2020 7:45pm

King Power Stadium

Leicester City spluttered their way past Championship side Birmingham City and into the ¼ finals of the FA Cup in a game where they dominated possession but largely failed to convert their control into chances.

Foxes boss Brendan Rodgers selected a mix of Premier League starters and fringe players for this one opting for the familiar Ricardo, Evans, Soyinchu, Chilwell back line with Wilfred Ndidi just in front. Dennis Praet and James Maddison patrolled the midfield but in the wide areas Marc Albrighton was afforded run down the right and Demari Gray took his chance to the left of midfield. Up top was Kelechi iheanacho as Jamie Vardy’s calf issues continued to rule him out.

Leicester’s 1^st half statistical dominance was not translated into clear cut chances in the main, and despite a decent cross goal effort from Ben Chilwell from wide left and a couple of decent efforts from James Maddison the foxes never looked like building up a head of steam that would break the Blues defences down.

Into the second half and with both wide men largely absent from significant play the fans were calling for the more familiar Harvey Barnes and Ayonze Perez who both sat patiently on the bench, but Rodgers persisted with the same personnel that had produced stalemate in the first half and to his credit the foxes began to turn their dominance in possession into increased attacking threat. On the hour the Leicester boss decided to turn up the heat on the visitors by replacing Wilf Ndidi with Youri Tielemans in a planned substitution that saw the Nigerian immediately apply ice to his knee on the touchline. And as the pressure intensified from the home side Harvey Barnes joined the fray in place of Demari Gray down the left who had been almost completely anonymous in a rare start against his former club.

With an improvement in attacking impetus Harvey Barnes began to run at the blues defenders and eventually the deadlock was broken in the 82^nd minute when Ricardo found himself centrally in the box and managed to head home a superb cross from Marc Albrigton from wide right. The Portuguese flying full back clashed heads as he bravely ensured the foxes took the lead and received treatment whilst Rodgers quickly switched Hamza Choudhury into the game in place of James Maddison in a defensive move to ensure the lead was retained in the dying minutes of the game.

Leicester’s attempts at seeing the game out were messy yet despite affording the ball to Birmingham in dangerous areas and putting themselves under unnecessary pressure the foxes edged out the game as marginal victors and went into the pot for the ¼ final draw.

Leicester had stuttered their way through this game with a performance that obtained the right result without largely entertaining the reduced numbers within King Power Stadium. Despite playing many of his regular 1^st team starters and giving Birmingham City (unbeaten in 13 matches prior) due respect the foxes failed to turn their 77% of the possession into the sort of offensive play we’ve come to enjoy until more recent matches.

MOTM? On a night where there were few stand out performances credit must go to Jonny Evans who looked almost certain to go off in the first period as he limped heavily with a knee problem but managed to battle through the pain and turn in a decent display. On balance I’d give the nod to winning goal scorer Ricardo who defended with passion until the final whistle and never tired in getting the ball moving forward.

With the draw for the ¼ finals made at the final whistle the foxes drew Chelsea at home in a match they will have to play much better in than this one in order to progress further. Leicester have the weekend off then continue in their quest for Champions League football by hosting cup heart breakers Aston Villa under the King Power lights once again. Will Vardy be fit? Who knows? But let’s hope so because despite Iheanacho’s much improved form this season without the foxes talisman leading the line Leicester looked largely bereft of a cutting edge.