Bournemouth 0 Leicester City 1 (AET): Fatawu strike ends Foxes’ Bournemouth blues
Leicester City winning away at Bournemouth and not making it too difficult at the end despite going into extra time? Rejoice as the Foxes land an FA Cup upset (of sorts)! This was less the usual Bournemouth blues and more of a Bournemouth basketball match, a combined forty-nine shots on goal and…one goal to make the difference.
(Photo: Zoe Mcgrady)
Enzo Maresca’s men had everything except the finishing touch in front of goal (again) for the first ninety minutes of this FA Cup tie. After a cracking first two minutes, the Foxes looked to have the home side on the ropes and really should have capitalised early on. For a side that had nine changes from the loss at Leeds, it was a better start than you could have expected.
Despite the changes, it still felt like a pretty balanced eleven and, while we had moments of chaos at the back in the first half, Bournemouth didn’t really press their home or Premier League status advantage much. Yunus Akgün was central to a lot of the early moves but continued a run of lots of energy and effort but no real output to show for it.
Perhaps it also counts for something that we operated in our safer space as underdogs again. This is an FA Cup upset of sorts, even though the game felt balanced for large portions, largely due to both sides having an inability to land a shot on target. Banana skins on boots all around again. Despite this, the winning goal was near perfect and on another night, we might have been talking about a Wanya Marçal wonder strike too.
Balancing kids amongst experience
The least predicted of Maresca’s changes was a debut for Arjan Raikhy. Anybody being asked to do what Harry Winks has done so deftly this season would find it tough and Raikhy struggled, looking a little off the pace. His main contribution came from setting out his goal of taking Hamza Choudhury’s crown for rough tackles, one in particular earning him a deserved yellow card.
Having a convincing deputy for Winks is an ongoing search in Maresca’s grand plan. We've tried a few players there, but still await the coming of the heir to the throne and without Wilfred Ndidi, the only options do seem to be the younger players.
Maresca opted for a balanced lineup for this away trip. For every younger, more inexperienced player, we had a stalwart, Marc Albrighton starting as captain, Conor Coady in alongside Jannik Vestergaard, offering more composure behind a less tested midfield combination.
It was good to see Marçal on the left wing again, another position that we seem to have a gaping hole in when we can’t play Stephy Mavididi. He very much grew into the game, unlucky not to score but finding good space and showing handy footwork. The Foxes looked more vulnerable down that wing on the turn though, between his physical limitations and the lack of pace that saw Callum Doyle beaten a few times.
That Maresca opted to further balance the side at half-time and remove the risk of Raikhy losing his head, seemed wise. Ricardo Pereira came on to try and help Leicester break the deadlock.
While Ben Nelson only came on for a few minutes in extra-time, we can expect to see more of him given he’s been preferred over Coady in recent games, as Vestergaard’s yellow card suspension begins at the weekend. These kids seem mostly alright, given our winning goal came from a nineteen year-old.
Desperately seeking anybody who can shoot (Abdul aside)
What more can we say that hasn’t already been written about our inability to shoot at the moment? The main difference here was that, unlike our last couple of games, our opposition seemed to have the same issue. Imagine a low-scoring basketball game, end to end but no real points to show for it, missed opportunities everywhere. Perhaps entertaining for the neutrals, ever infuriating for those of us who have seen this before.
It softens the blow that the one goal we did get was gorgeous, even if it took forty-four shots before that and lots of despairing. Fatawu cut inside and curled his shot to perfection into the top corner. While Mark Travers got a hand there, there was no stopping it.
It almost makes you forgive and forget the pitiful efforts that came before it. This isn’t a one or two-player issue. For everybody who missed chances at Leeds, insert a new name tonight who joined the party.
Akgün was liable for the majority of them, finding himself forward and alone on numerous occasions but either unable to get the ball into the net or to retain possession. He had one glorious one-on-one chance in particular, that he somehow put high into the Bournemouth sky.
It’s improbable that Maresca isn’t looking at this, part of the Guardiola school of seeking perfection, but it’s a bizarre run we find ourselves on of big chances we’ve had versus what we’ve actually scored. That it didn’t cost us and haunt us on this occasion should be a boost to all as attention turns back to the visit of QPR to the King Power on Saturday.
No kudos to Alex Scott, the Veste-goal denier
Not that you can ever deny having a dancing, smiling Abdul Fatawu as Man of the Match, but it probably should have been Vestergaard. Calm and composed where some of the younger players stumbled, he was magnificent throughout the full game.
Despite the issues with shooting boots, it’s actually only through some last ditch defending from Alex Scott that the best chance of the game wasn’t scored and it was Vestergaard again. Not for the first time, the Dane saw a void open in midfield and charged into it, then continued into the Bournemouth box.
Goal of the season contender? Worth it for the sheer joy it caused and how much fun it was to see him bombing forward and almost capping the move off with a chipped goal. Boo to you Scott for denying us this glorious effort.
After a few nervy endings to games recently, one of the most pleasing aspects was the relatively calm approach we maintained at 1-0 going into that second period of extra time. Nobody lost their head, nobody did anything rash and we were helped by Bournemouth’s somewhat wild stabs at goal by the end, but it should instil some confidence again tied in with the clean sheet.
This was possibly Coady’s best game in a Leicester shirt yet, but alongside Vestergaard, the plaudits should go to to Hamza Choudhury. Stepping into the Ricardo Pereira role for the first forty-five minutes and then more of a midfield role for the second half, he was the definition of here, there and everywhere.
The maturity we’d seen as he entered this campaign held up and he made some important tackles, well timed and in control, where previously you’d have found yourself wincing in horror as he lined them up.
Maresca may not love the end to end nature of this game but he won’t be unhappy with the outcome and the efforts his players made. It was a very professional performance with some resilience.
That it allowed him the chance to rest a number of our first team players and give more minutes to promising youngsters is the cherry we stole from Bournemouth on top of the cake. The Foxes are into the FA Cup quarter-finals with the draw to come.
