Leicester City vs Stoke City. Sky Bet Championship.
The King Power StadiumAttendance31,589.
Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Leicester and Stoke City at the King Power Stadium on Saturday | Kelechi Iheanacho and Jamie Vardy steer Foxes to comfortable win.
Saturday 7 October 2023 19:43, UK
Kelechi Iheanacho and Jamie Vardy were both on target as Leicester stayed top of the Championship with a 2-0 victory against Stoke at the King Power Stadium.
Iheanacho scored for the third successive game as the dominant Foxes reached the 30-point mark from only 11 games and already have a 10-point cushion to third.
But, once more, Enzo Maresca's side had to work hard for their victory against stubborn opponents, with injury-hit Stoke providing the league leaders with few chances until the latter stages.
Iheanacho broke the deadlock after 24 minutes but Leicester had to wait until the 79th minute before substitute Vardy netted his fourth league goal of the season from close range.
The result meant the Foxes recorded three home league wins in succession, without conceding, for the first time since April 2017, when Craig Shakespeare was in charge.
Maresca made six changes from Wednesday's 3-0 win over Preston. That included former Stoke defender Harry Souttar's first Championship start of the season.
Stoke went into the game missing nine players through injury and their bench contained two goalkeepers and two 16-year-olds.
Stoke made it clear early on that Leicester would have to work hard to break them down.
And the visitors created an early opening of their own when Bae Jun-ho raced to the edge of the area and went down under a challenge from Jannik Vestergaard, but referee Geoff Eltringham dismissed all shouts for a penalty.
Leicester took the lead through Iheanacho's third goal in as many games.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Ricardo Pereira combined to supply Iheanacho on the left of the Stoke area, and he drove the ball into the far corner before Stoke goalkeeper Mark Travers could react.
Leicester's command of the game was displayed when the scoreboard showed them having 90 per cent possession at one point.
Stoke had a clear chance to equalise at the start of the second half when Mehdi Leris delivered a cross for Nathan Lowe, but he mistimed his header in front of goal and watched it fly over the bar.
But Leicester almost scored their second goal of the game when Yunus Akgun's shot from the edge of the area brought an impressive save from Travers.
Leicester eventually extended their lead with substitute Vardy being on the end of an excellent move.
Vardy had only been on the field for three minutes when he was presented with a close-range opportunity after some neat exchanges involving Dewsbury-Hall and Abdul Fatawu before Wilfred Ndidi's final ball set up the Leicester number nine to score.
Leicester's Enzo Maresca:
"That's why we try to switch them around. The other night against Preston, Kele was probably not happy to be on the bench. But he came on and was fantastic.
"Here, Jamie was not happy to be on the bench. But he came on and scored, and was happy.
"To be competitive, you need two players for each position so they can compete between them. In the end, we can choose one of them.
"Here we left out Wout Faes, Stephy Mavididi, Wilfred Ndidi, James Justin and Jamie.
"But they cannot think to play 46 games. It's impossible.
"At the moment, no human being can play every game at the same level.
"Maybe next time, I'll make six changes, we'll lose and I'll be wrong. But we have to make those decisions."
Stoke's Alex Neil:
"If we'd got to half-time at 0-0, our intention was always to try and have a go. You can see why, when you do that, you don't come here and go toe to toe with Leicester. Particularly when you haven't got your strongest squad.
"But we had arguably two of the best chances in the game which fell to Nathan Lowe. He's disappointed, but I said to him afterwards that I'd be more disappointed if they weren't falling to him.
"If we had a stronger team, we'd get a better feel of where we are compared to them. We had a young side out.
"The minute we changed, they brought on pace at the top end of the pitch.
"Jamie Vardy's going to cause you all kinds of problems at this level.
"But our set up was good, I don't think they really had a chance until their goal. That was disappointing from our perspective as Iheanacho was really wide."
