Matchday Live Talking Points: Team Goals, Special Players & Upcoming Games

Club Ambassador Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall joined Tony Cottee and Gerry Taggart on the LCFC Radio airwaves to provide their thoughts on Sunday’s hard-earned 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

2019-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

by Richard Mellor

Published

04 Nov, 2019

Matchday Live Talking Points: Team Goals, Special Players & Upcoming Games

Club Ambassador Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall joined Tony Cottee and Gerry Taggart on the LCFC Radio airwaves to provide their thoughts on Sunday’s hard-earned 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Richard Mellor

2019-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

Matchday Live Talking Points: Team Goals, Special Players & Upcoming Games

Club Ambassador Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall joined Tony Cottee and Gerry Taggart on the LCFC Radio airwaves to provide their thoughts on Sunday’s hard-earned 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Richard Mellor

2019-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

Matchday Live Talking Points: Team Goals, Special Players & Upcoming Games

Club Ambassador Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall joined Tony Cottee and Gerry Taggart on the LCFC Radio airwaves to provide their thoughts on Sunday’s hard-earned 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Richard Mellor

2019-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

Matchday Live Talking Points: Team Goals, Special Players & Upcoming Games

Club Ambassador Alan ‘The Birch’ Birchenall joined Tony Cottee and Gerry Taggart on the LCFC Radio airwaves to provide their thoughts on Sunday’s hard-earned 2-0 victory over Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park.

Richard Mellor

2019-11-04T13:00:00.000Z

The Foxes triumphed in south London with goals from Çağlar Söyüncü and Jamie Vardy, who both struck after a goalless interval to secure their side’s seventh Premier League victory from 11 games.

While Cottee was on co-commentary duty in the pressbox at Selhurst Park, Birchenall and Taggart were based in the LCFC Radio studio at King Power Stadium to provide pre-match and post-match analysis of the win.

As good a team goal as you’ll see

Tony Cottee said: “It was exactly what I said it would be – a hard-fought game. It’s never, ever easy coming to Crystal Palace, but it sets down a marker, it really does. It’s great winning 9-0 at Southampton, but when you go and win 2-0 at Crystal Palace, it’s a really tough place to come to. Other teams look at it and go ‘wow, they’re in really, really good form’. It was a great team performance and they were really good defensively and when they needed to, they got their goals. The first came from a corner, and the second goal was as good a team goal as you’re going to see over the course of this weekend. It was a thoroughly deserved three points again for Leicester.”

A fantastic, professional performance

Gerry Taggart said: “Crystal Palace is a very difficult place to go at any stage of the season, but to go there and put in that second-half performance especially, it’s just a fantastic, professional performance. Yet again, they came up with the goods when they most needed them. Brendan Rodgers will be absolutely over the moon, backing up two away victories in the Premier League on the bounce. They’ve scored 11 goals and they haven’t conceded.”

Special players produce special goals

Alan Birchenall said: “All the good or great sides do that, they ground out the win. Everybody said going down to Palace will be a difficult game, and we’ve never really performed down there, but they dug deep. You saw two faces of Leicester City today – you saw the doggedness that’s within the team, because Palace put on a bit of pressure when our first goal went it. Then, of course, what you get when you’ve got special players is a special goal. That’s the difference this year.”

City wore Palace down

Gerry Taggart said: “It wore them down, that second goal. If you watch the build-up, forget about the step-over, the build-up to the pass from Youri Tielemans into Demarai Gray, who then did a step-over, the Palace players were like statues. Yet again, late on in the game, Leicester have just worn the opposition down and that second goal was a fantastic team goal.”

An outstanding defence

Tony Cottee said: “What I liked about that performance was that in the first half, it was frustrating at times. The final ball kept going astray and it didn’t quite happen for Leicester in the first half, but they were well organised. The goalkeeper and back four has been outstanding so far this year – they’ve the joint-best defensive record in the Premier League and they didn’t concede again. No one panicked, they came out for the second half and had to be patient.”

Çağs emphasises what Leicester are about

Alan Birchenall said: “It must be fantastic for Çağs (Çağlar Söyüncü) to have somebody alongside him like Jonny Evans. Those two today were the rock that the game was built on. With all due respect to our full-backs, that was the rock and Çağs emphasises what we’re all about at the moment.”

City’s upcoming fixtures

Tony Cottee said: “I’m just looking at the fixtures that are coming up, and the next six or seven games, without getting too carried away, are games that Leicester can get results in. Then, they play Manchester City on 21 December. It’s a fantastically exciting time for the Club, and I’m just watching the fans trickle away in the far corner of Selhurst Park, and they’re all going home happy again.”

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