Here’s Pete Lansley’s match report.
Full-time: Aston Villa 1-2 Leicester
Leicester climb into second and that was a professional job, with two goals in the first half then holding off Villa after that Traore goal at the start of the second half. Villa missed Jack Grealish while Leicester, who are in second, will await news of how bad James Maddison’s injuries were.
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90+5 min: A foul by Thomas gives Villa a free-kick chance to get the ball in the mixer. They choose not to. Elmohamady’s cross is cleared. Then Ndidi stops Mings getting a clear sight of goal. It comes back in, from Elmohamady and Mings cannot get a header on target. That has to be that. And it is.
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90+3 min: Gareth Southgate is still in the stands, and behind the mask he will have been hugely impressed with Harvey Barnes. Villa keep pushing on until Trezeguet runs out of room and Kasper Schmeichel takes an age over a goal kick.
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90+1 min: A Villa corner, and John McGinn sees glory and shoots from miles out. And shoots miles out.
90 min: Five minutes to be added, we are told. That’s mostly down to the injury breajs for James Maddison.
89 min: Villa penalty claim. Watkins and Mendy clash, and the striker goes down. Referee Oliver had a good vantage point and VAR will wave that on too.
88 min: Villa pushing on, Leicester retreating. Surely there will be one last chance. Youri Tielemans goes off, with Hamza Choudhury coming on to try and lock up the midfield.
86 min: Soyuncu goes down as Watkins and he go up for a ball. The Turk is not impressed and is holding his shoulder. Watkins has not done much wrong there though.
84 min: Vardy blocks the ball and then gallops up the other end of the field, and then gets a shot in that Mings deflects behind. The old Vardy engine can still go through the gears.
83 min: Villa force a corner through the freshly arrived Sanson. Jonny Evans clears that with a towering header.
81 min: Trezeguet ruled offside just as he thought he was going to score.
Another Villa change: on comes Morgan Sanson, and off goes Douglas Luiz.
79 min: More good play from Luke Thomas, whose intervention stops Traore getting a second goal. It looked to be going begging from Matt Targett. Ross Barkley update: he is is still wandering around the field on his way to the dugout. He looks very miffed.
77 min: Leicester make a change. On goes Amartey, and off goes Ricardo. Barkley looks very tired, the suggestion being he has really struggled to recover from his last injury.
76 min: Ross Barkley goes off, and Jacob Ramsey comes on.
“I’ve seen many worse players than Ross Barkley,” says Pádraig McAuliffe. “But few with such consistently bad judgement. Older but never wiser. Another game has passed him by. He may have more natural talent than Maddison (whatever that means), but only a fraction of the game intelligence.”
He hasn’t been good today.
74 min: Villa looking a little ragged. Barnes’s right-footed cross is knocked behind. Villa get that clear and force a corner down the other end.
72 min: Jonny Evans a tad casual as the ball comes back to him. He ends up being knocked over by Ollie Watkins but that’s the sum total of his punishment. A long pass to Vardy again causes problems for Villa. He’s so dangerous against tiring defenders.
70 min: Twenty minutes to save this for Villa. They’ve been much improved but also remained quite vulnerable. Vardy just fails to get on the end of a Barnes pass.
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68 min: Villa pushing on now. Maddison’s taking up of space for Leicester was a problem for them and one they don’t have to contend with now.
67 min: Villa sub: on comes Trezeguet, and off goes El Ghazi who did struggle to stand in for Jack Grealish.
65 min: So the game billed as Grealish v Maddison now features neither of them. Looks like Gareth Southgate can make his way home, perhaps via a Wild Bean Cafe.
64 min: Vardy appears from nowhere but the angle is too oblique, and he misses the target. Off comes Maddison, on comes Mendy, and Tielemans pushes himself forward.
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63 min: And off goes Maddison with. Is that it for him? Leicester are playing with ten men for a brief spell until he comes back on. Papy Mendy is being prepared.
61 min: Maddison takes the free kick and it’s well saved by Martinez. He’s then in the wars again, and clutching his hip. Looks like a sub will be made by Brendan Rodgers.
59 min: Great skill from Barnes with his heel knocks the ball over Elmohamady who fouls him, and a yellow card results. That was cynical and VAR has a look to see if anything further was required for punishment. It was beautiful by Barnes, and the foul was, well, foul.
57 min: Leicester have been rather less than their first-half selves but are stepping things up a little after that shock at the start of the second half.
56 min: Make of this what you will.
Not sure if this will help rally @AVFCOfficial but ace private investigator Luella Shakespeare @dollyjoyner was cap fit during #shakespeareandhathaway ep recently on @detroitpublictv — possible fashion note for @JohnBrewin_ as #minutebyminute counts down https://t.co/obByxDliRQ pic.twitter.com/Dl8IMUcmaw
— James Stewart Reaney (@JamesSReaney) February 21, 2021
55 min: Maddison leaves the field with a limp that is not too pronounced. He comes back on soon enough.
53 min: Some Barnes wizardry on the left but Tielemans can’t dig the ball out for a shot. Maddison goes down under a challenge as Villa speed on for a counter. Maddison gets back up, but is not moving freely. When the ball goes dead, he sits down again. Looks like he hurt himself in a block tackle.
51 min: Maddison is angry when his free-kick evades everyone, with Soyuncu the prime target not getting there.
49 min: Leicester had allowed Villa to keep the ball from the start of the second half and paid the price for it. Great finish from Traore and Villa at last getting up in numbers. That was their first shot on target.
Goal! Aston Villa 1-2 Leicester (Traore, 48)
Targett steps forward, his ball is left by McGinn and Traore crashes home. Game on!
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46 min: Back away we go. Villa have a vast improvment to make. Dean Smith looks to be relatively relaxed as he makes his way out of the dressing room. No changes made to his team, mind.
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Gary Naylor gets in touch: “I’ve been immersed in Villa’s team of 40 years ago for an upcoming podcast. Much to consider, but one thing is irrefutable - Gary Shaw is England’s greatest lost talent. What a player!”
Half-time: Aston Villa 0-2 Leicester
Maddison and Barnes, two players who Villa had to watch,and failed to control, got the goals and Leicester were much the better team. Villa, it goes almost without saying, badly missed the drive of Jack Grealish.
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45 min: Schmeichel climbs highest to palm away a Villa corner. One minute added on at the end of the half.
44 min: Villa pushing on to make their half-time team talk a little less full of colourful metaphors from Dean Smith. His team have worked hard but lacked inspiration. And defensive quality at key moments.
42 min: Villa free-kick, which Targett booms in. It comes to naught and Barnes sends Vardy away. But Castagne is cleaned out by Targett who has come back to defend.
40 min: Leicester corner, taken short and then Maddison is offside. That’s poor, schoolboy stuff from them. Evans and Soyuncu had bothered sauntered up.
39 min: Leicester take up possession for a long time, and their spell is only broken up by a foul on Thomas.
37 min: Watkins is running the channels well for Villa but Castagne is wise to him on this occasion.
35 min: From the latest Villa corner. Soyuncu heads the ball straight into the path of McGinn. Thankfully for Leicester, McGinn’s shot is as bad as Soyuncu’s header.
34 min: Leicester sitting back a little, looking to play on the counter. Villa starting to force a series of corners.
32 min: Villa get a corner. Can they get something from a set play? It comes out to Douglas Luiz and Konsa really might have done better from the cross. That was going begging. Leicester are a bit wobbly at the back under those kind of pressures.
30 min: Villa look a tad shellshocked, understandable in the circumstances. The Grealish factor cannot be discounted but they have not defended at all well.
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27 min: Barnes again causing problems before Maddison has a shot blocked. Leicester are pushing on for another. And possibly another after that.
26 min: Villa have sat off, but Elmohamady has had no answer to Barnes whenever the Leicester winger has got the ball.
24 min: Awesome stuff from Leicester, slack from Villa. This could get embarrassing.
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Goal! Aston Villa 0-2 Leicester (Barnes, 23)
Vardy shoots, Martinez palms the ball to Barnes, who blasts home from close range.
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21 min: Luke Thomas in the wars as he gets a whack in the midriff from McGinn. Totally accidental and all is fine between the two protagonists once the teenager gets back up.
20 min: Not a bad audition for Maddison with Gareth Southgate in the stands. He’d not done done much until that point, but that was a mark of his excellence, and the unselfishness of Harvey Barnes.
Goal! Aston Villa 0-1 Leicester (Maddison, 19)
Barnes lays it off, Villa’s defenders stand off, and Maddsion has space to shoot. Martinez a little slow to get down to the ball.
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17 min: Villa chance snuffed out by Thomas’ tackling. Watkins was shaping to score. El Ghazi had escaped down the left.
16 min: Vardy, for all Leicester’s excellence, has been quiet. Though that’s his game these days, to sit and wait for his moment.
14 min: Castagne is felled by McGinn. Villa forced back once more. Maddison takes the free-kick, and it’s headed out. Leicester push on again.
12 min: No Jack Grealish means Villa have nobody to carry the ball. And they are suffering for it.
11 min: Barnes makes a typical run off the left, and opens up to shoot. Konsa does well to deflect the ball behind. Then Ricardo takes on a shot and the ball comes off Elmohamady and goes behind. All Leicester.
9 min: Villa are sitting back deep, as well they might with Jamie Vardy in the opposition. And Harvey Barnes.
7 min: Thomas, who has started well, tries to pass it through to a galloping Barnes, but Villa get it clear.
6 min: First Villa attack and Watkins holds up the ball well, though there are not enough players around him to recycle the ball.
5 min: Villa concede a corner, what can Leicester produce? The ball comes out to Thomas, who whacks it with real venom. Another corner that Thomas again gets but his cross back into the box is cleared.
3 min: Leicester are playing two right backs in Castagne and Ricardo, which seems a plan designed for Jack Grealish, who isn’t here, of course. Luke Thomas is playing left back.
1 min: And away we go...Ricardo gets forward and seizes on a flick by Tielemans, and his shot is saved by Martinez.
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Rick Harris has been in touch: “With Jack Grealish unfortunately out for Villa it is a fabulous chance for Ross Barkley to remind Gareth Southgate that he too should be considered for the Euros squad. Big game for Leicester to stake their second place credentials and hope Manchester United slip up against Newcastle in the late show.”
Dean Smith speaks, and the subject is, of course, the absence of Jack Grealish.
Yeah, he’s had some discomfort in training and we didn’t think he was right to play. We don’t believe it’s a long term problem. It’s on his leg. I have no idea how long. We are assessing, I am hopeful for Leeds but I an always the eternal optimist. It’s a challenge, but also an opportunity.
Brendan Rodgers speaks.
Yeah, we have been playing well with good results. We just have to focus. They are a very good team and they have a player who is a special talent. He’s hard to replace but Dean has a strong squad and will rely on the collective. It’s going to be a tight game.
News from the Championship here. Significant news too.
For Leicester, Timothy Castagne’s back at left back after his hamstring problem with Ricardo Pereira also back, and that’s timely in the light of James Justin’s long-term injury.
Anwar El Ghazi replaces Grealish, while Ahmed Elmohamady comes in for Matty Cash, who will also be a big loss to Villa.
And the big news there is *no* Jack Grealish. He will also miss their next game against Leeds. The word is an injury. That makes things all the tougher for Dean Smith. And opens the floor to James Maddison.
Here are the teams
Aston Villa: Martinez, Elmohamady, Konsa, Mings, Targett, Douglas Luiz, McGinn, Traore, Barkley, El Ghazi, Watkins.
Subs: Heaton, Taylor, Trezeguet, Nakamba, Sanson, Davis, Ramsey,
Hayden, Chukwuemeka.
🟣 𝗧𝗘𝗔𝗠 𝗡𝗘𝗪𝗦 🟣
— Aston Villa (@AVFCOfficial) February 21, 2021
This is your Aston Villa team to face Leicester City this afternoon. 👊 #AVLLEI pic.twitter.com/K68v0MKRby
Leicester: Schmeichel, Ricardo Pereira, Evans, Soyuncu, Thomas, Tielemans, Ndidi, Castagne, Maddison, Barnes, Vardy.
Subs: Albrighton, Ward, Iheanacho, Amartey, Under, Choudhury, Mendy,
Fuchs, Daley-Campbell.
Team news! 🦊
— Leicester City (@LCFC) February 21, 2021
Brought to you by @eToro 🤝#AvlLei
The referee is Michael Oliver.
Preamble
Second place is not nowhere when it comes to Leicester City. If Manchester City are to run away with the title, as seems likely, then that’s the prize on offer for a team who are fun to watch and have been expertly constructed by Brendan Rodgers. He has proved himself again to be a manager who under the bluster knows how to get the best from players. There remain certain doubts over his ability to sustain that - it all fell away at Liverpool, Celtic were not much cop in Europe and Leicester did collapse last season - but Leicester look solid and full of goals, especially with Jamie Vardy in. This is a match that will see James Maddison take on Jack Grealish in the battle of youngish English playmakers from the Midlands. Grealish has the better hair and 10 assists but Maddison has scored one goal more with seven, and his quiff if admirable enough, too. Villa struggled last time out but held out for a draw from Brighton while Leicester, after a midweek draw with Slavia Prague, put Liverpool to the sword last week. This has the look of a crisp, competitive match.
Kick-off is at 2.05 pm UK time. Join me.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 24 | 34 | 56 |
| 2 | Man Utd | 24 | 19 | 46 |
| 3 | Leicester | 24 | 16 | 46 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 25 | 16 | 43 |
| 5 | West Ham | 24 | 9 | 42 |
| 6 | Liverpool | 25 | 11 | 40 |
| 7 | Everton | 24 | 4 | 40 |
| 8 | Aston Villa | 22 | 12 | 36 |
| 9 | Tottenham Hotspur | 23 | 11 | 36 |
| 10 | Arsenal | 24 | 6 | 34 |
| 11 | Wolverhampton | 25 | -6 | 33 |
| 12 | Leeds | 24 | -3 | 32 |
| 13 | Southampton | 24 | -9 | 30 |
| 14 | Crystal Palace | 24 | -15 | 29 |
| 15 | Burnley | 25 | -12 | 28 |
| 16 | Brighton | 24 | -5 | 26 |
| 17 | Newcastle | 24 | -15 | 25 |
| 18 | Fulham | 25 | -11 | 22 |
| 19 | West Brom | 25 | -36 | 14 |
| 20 | Sheff Utd | 25 | -26 | 11 |
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