Matchday Live Talking Points: Well-Drilled Back Line, Width & Creativity

LCFC Radio
12 Aug 2019
2 Minutes
Gerry Taggart, Matt Elliott and Steve Guppy all shared their post-match thoughts on LCFC Radio after the final whistle on Sunday.

The former Foxes trio all watched on for LCFC Radio at King Power Stadium, where Leicester City drew 0-0 with Wolverhampton Wanderers during their maiden fixture of the 2019/20 season.

Exchanging views on a number of topics following the match, Taggart, Elliott and Guppy analysed the Wolves defence, City’s creativity and the impact of substitute Harvey Barnes.

Two evenly-matched sides

Wilfred Ndidi attempts to recover the ball from Wolves attacker Diogo Jota.

Gerry Taggart said: “We knew it was going to be a tight game of football between these two evenly-matched sides. That’s the way it panned out. They sort of blocked each other out and blocked each other’s strengths out. We all wanted to see a bit more impetus in the game. We saw glimpses of that, especially when Harvey Barnes came on, but ultimately, Leicester didn’t do enough to win the game and Wolves did enough not to lose it.”

A well-organised defence

Ayoze Pérez holds the ball up while under pressure from Conor Coady.

Matt Elliott said: “Leicester came up against a packed, solid and well-organised defence. Brendan Rodgers has had to do that before – Newcastle springs to mind from last season amongst others. It’s going to be increasingly the case for Leicester at King Power Stadium. They need to find a method of breaking teams down more regularly.”

Width stretched Wolves

Harvey Barnes replaced Hamza Choudhury in the second half at King Power Stadium.

Steve Guppy: “It’s the first game of the season and there’s a long way to go. It was a congested game and maybe some good old-fashioned width would have helped. Harvey Barnes supplied that when he came on with direct runs and give-and-gos. It stretched Wolves where maybe up until that point they hadn’t been stretched.”

City have the ammunition

James Maddison scored seven goals and made a further seven assists last campaign.

Gerry Taggart said: “We have the ammunition with James Maddison, who is a very, very good corner taker. He’s always looking for the ball and always looking to be positive and creative. It’s all about putting the ball in a good area, you don’t have to have too much of anything on the ball. It’s about having just right amount of everything on it – pace and bend.”

On Monday night, Extra-Time returns at 5:45pm BST on LCFC.com, Twitter and Facebook as Arlo White, Rob Tanner and Matt Elliott join presenter Dan Bates in the LCFC Radio studio.