Matchday Live Talking Points: Foxes Resilience, Experienced Heads & Impressive Albrighton
- Leicester City beat AEK Athens 2-1 in the UEFA Europa League on Thursday evening
- Jamie Vardy and Hamza Choudhury were on the scoresheet in Athens
- The Matchday Live panel were live on air post-match to review the result
Dean Hammond, Gerry Taggart and Matt Elliott joined Dan Bates after the full-time whistle in Athens to review the Foxes' 2-1 victory over AEK Athens, which maintained a 100 per cent start to their European campaign.
First-half goals from Jamie Vardy and Hamza Choudhury were enough to see City take all three points from the Group G encounter, despite a second-half strike from substitute Muamer Tanković reducing the deficit.
An excellent display
Dean Hammond said: "A very professional performance, apart from the five-minute spell at the beginning of the second half, when they conceded and almost conceded again, but it was very disciplined. To come away from home in a difficult tie, be 2-0 up at half-time and then after they scored, Leicester just settled the game down, showed the experience and the maturity, even in a young squad, of how to see a game out. There were a few moments, a few blocks, a few crosses, but Leicester fully deserved the result tonight."
Handling AEK's threats
Matt Elliott said: "There were just a couple of mini periods where they just switched off a bit, thinking 'we've got the better of these, we've got the measure of the opposition'. They just took their foot off the gas a bit and came unstuck. Tanković coming on, he produced something different and they probably didn't feel too threatened in the first half. Some of the opportunities that AEK had were down to Leicester's lack of defensive discipline, rather than being created against them. Just that lack of focus could have maybe cost them, but that's something they can look at for their next venture aboard, or further in the competition."
Everyone playing their part
Gerry Taggart said: "It was a difficult away tie, the pitch was awful. Premier League lads are not used to playing on these types of pitches anymore, so to go over there, to get a grip of the conditions and the lack of atmosphere and to come away with the three points, it's job done and happy days. It was a massive contribution by the squad players and that will be the most pleasing thing for Brendan, with the players that he's brought in that haven't had a lot of game time this season, he can trust them to go out in these games and put in a performance. That's vital for your manager when you have a squad the size of Leicester's and you know you're going to have to rotate players at certain times in the season and give them game time and there's always that question mark and that's getting smaller for all those players that have come in tonight."
Experienced heads
Dean Hammond said: "Leicester were so dominant in the first half and had so much control that they maybe just came out for the second half too relaxed. Athens just turned up the tempo, got an opportunity, scored and then their tail is up and they almost scored again. So I think it was just a little bit of complacency in those moments but after that, the experience of Wes [Morgan], of Kasper [Schmeichel], of Jamie [Vardy] will have just settled the team down, knowing how to see out a game, got possession of the ball, play it in Athens' half again and they just took the sting out of the game. It's a brilliant start to the European campaign."
Impressive Albrighton
Gerry Taggart said: "You know what you are going to get from Marc [Albrighton] week in, week out. He's done nothing wrong in his Leicester career, finds himself on the bench most weeks but when he's called into action, Brendan Rodgers has a massive amount of trust in Marc, rightly so, and again he showed why. At the end, he's covered round the back to clear the ball so fantastic defending right until the end."
A great effort
Matt Elliott said: "Overall I think it was really encouraging to see that Leicester ultimately got the win relatively comfortably in the end and, on another night, might have increased the difference goal by one or two more. But any away win in Europe is a great effort and should be treasured."