Matchday Live Talking Points: Positives To Take, New Signings Impress & Looking Ahead
- Matt Elliott, Steve Walsh and Simon Grayson analyse Leicester City’s 1-0 defeat to Aston Villa
- The defensive trio shared their thoughts on LCFC Radio’s Matchday Live show
- The game looked to be heading for a goalless draw before Ross Barkley's 90th minute goal
Villa inflicted a second Premier League defeat of the season on City thanks to a late strike from Ross Barkley, handing the visitors all three points from their trip to King Power Stadium.
With Elliott on commentary duties for LCFC Radio, and Walsh and Grayson also watching on, all three analysed a number of major talking points whilst on air after the full-time whistle.
Wesley Fofana's impressive debut, taking the positives from defeat and bouncing back from the disappointment, as well as looking ahead to the Foxes' upcoming Europa League campaign, were all on the agenda during the 30-minute discussion show.
A disappointing end
Steve Walsh said: "It certainly looked like we were going to get at least a point out of that game and it was a killer blow and just bad timing for Leicester. They switched off for a minute and you are one down and the game is gone. They've got to be disappointed, all of them will be. You see Brendan Rodgers going on the pitch after, giving the fist to all the players, he'll get them back up, but they'll feel like they've lost out on a point definitely there."
Positives to take
Simon Grayson said: "I don't think he'll [Brendan Rodgers] fault the effort, the commitment, because the players worked extremely hard, defensively looked quite assured and they had to put their bodies on the line, work back, track back, you saw [Youri] Tielemans at times make a dash to get back in when Aston Villa were on the counter attack so I think he'll see those as the positives and take those, he'll just be disappointed that they've not really capitalised first-half when they had a bit more of the pressure."
New defensive signings impress
Matt Elliott said: "I thought the two that stood out for me was [Wesley] Fofana, not just because of his debut, I thought he was pretty impressive and [Timothy] Castagne for me. His athleticism is unbelievable. He flies up and down the right-hand touchline, but I thought he had a tough job on his hands dealing with [Jack] Grealish, who featured relatively prominently for Aston Villa, but he didn't cause any massive alarms and Castagne dealt with him very well, but also found time to get forward himself. They've got a great signing there."
Missing that creative spark
Steve Walsh said: "If Jamie Vardy was playing we know it would have been three points because he makes those runs that no one made tonight and we didn't look really like we could get behind Villa and when we did that final decision didn't work. We didn't create quite a much as we could. [James] Maddison coming on certainly helped that bit of creation in the end but it wasn't to be and they'll be hugely disappointed with that result."
A busy schedule ahead
Simon Grayson said: "The start the Club had was fantastic and then trying to build off the result against Man City, you go and lose 3-0 at home, but there were a lot of positives tonight. Back to back defeats isn't ideal but the games are going to come thick and fast. The Europa League starts on Thursday, then Arsenal away, then another Europa game and then away at Leeds, so you can't dwell on it, you learn from, you look at the positives, you look at the negatives and you still look at the table as potentially being in the top six after Monday night as well."
Europa League challenge awaits
Matt Elliott said: "The excitement will start kicking in for the start of the Europa League challenge and it's a different venture, it's exciting to be involved in Europe, it's not the Champions League but it doesn't happen too often in Leicester City's history and they'll be looking to make the most of it. I'm sure they will, despite the two results that happened recently. They've a chance of acquitting themselves well in that league, the opposition that they'll come up against are not to be taken lightly, but you've got to go into it confident that you can do well in the group."