Demarai Gray has joined Bayer Leverkusen from Leicester on a deal running to the summer of 2022, the German club have announced.
The 24-year-old winger had been with the Foxes since January 2016 and claimed a Premier League winners' medal that season. He made a total of 133 top-flight appearances for the club, with only one of those coming this season.
Following Leicester's 3-1 defeat by Leeds, Brendan Rodgers said: "He has obviously been a really good young talented player for the club but he is at that age now where he wants to be a regular player and unfortunately for him the form of Harvey Barnes has stopped that opportunity for him.
"He wants to go and play and we wish him all the best, he was a good boy here and worked really hard for me."
Gray said of the move: "The whole world was watching when the Bundesliga was the first big league to start playing again last year after the break caused by the coronavirus. I like German football.
"I've seen how Bayer 04 attack, are aggressive with great technique going forward and like to dictate the game through possession. I'll fit in well. I can and I would like to develop here and be successful with this attractive team."
Bayer sporting director Simon Rolfes said: "Demarai Gray is a tricky, very fast and penetrating winger who will give our attacking game an additional boost. He's capable of winning out in fast one-on-ones and bringing his team-mates into play. Thanks to his experience in the Premier League, Demarai is a player who can help us straight away."
Managing director Rudi Völler said: "Demarai is an unpredictable forward who will give us more options for the rest of the season." PA Media
Here’s Pete Lansley’s report.
Big day for Bamford. Big season for Bamford.
15 – Patrick Bamford has been directly involved in 15 goals in his 20 Premier League games for Leeds United (11 goals, 4 assists) – only Tony Yeboah (17) has had a hand in more goals in their first 20 PL appearances for the club. Revelation. pic.twitter.com/aVxHubfGQc
— OptaJoe (@OptaJoe) January 31, 2021
Patrick Bamford speaks.
It was a hard game as we knew from the home leg. We had to concentrate the whole game and really fight for it I’d like to say I don’t think about [not scoring] but all strikers do. To be honest, it was more important to give a good performance. Last couple of games I have been a little bit off it. It was nice to get the assist. I think the boys expend me to shoot. But Jack had it in a plate. If I shoot and miss it’s not worth it, we needed that extra comfort. Liverpool we came very close, City we got a point. Arsenal, Chelsea and united we were a bit off ot. We should be proud of ourselves. We are a strong group and we have added real talent and skill. Everyone has their feet on the ground. There are no superstars.
Rick Harris is excited: “You can forget Villa putting 7 past Liverpool, Burnley beating Liverpool at Anfield, and United losing to the Blades – this has to be the shock of the season Leeds thrashing Leicester or should I say RAILROADED by El Loco.”
Leicester will not go up to second. Leeds still in 12th but the top half is in reach.
| Pos | Team | P | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Man City | 20 | 24 | 44 |
| 2 | Man Utd | 21 | 10 | 41 |
| 3 | Leicester | 21 | 12 | 39 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 20 | 17 | 37 |
| 5 | West Ham | 20 | 6 | 35 |
| 6 | Tottenham Hotspur | 19 | 14 | 33 |
| 7 | Chelsea | 21 | 12 | 33 |
| 8 | Everton | 19 | 5 | 33 |
| 9 | Aston Villa | 19 | 13 | 32 |
| 10 | Arsenal | 21 | 6 | 31 |
| 11 | Southampton | 20 | 2 | 29 |
| 12 | Leeds | 20 | -1 | 29 |
| 13 | Crystal Palace | 21 | -11 | 26 |
| 14 | Wolverhampton | 21 | -9 | 23 |
| 15 | Newcastle | 21 | -13 | 22 |
| 16 | Burnley | 20 | -13 | 22 |
| 17 | Brighton | 20 | -7 | 18 |
| 18 | Fulham | 20 | -12 | 14 |
| 19 | West Brom | 21 | -33 | 12 |
| 20 | Sheff Utd | 21 | -22 | 8 |
Full-time: Leicester 1-3 Leeds
That was something of a mugging for Leicester. Leeds’ goals all came from forcing the ball from Leicester and then breaking at pace. Bamford’s goal and assist were outstanding. Leicester have collected one point from a possible six in the two games they have been without Vardy.
Updated
90+1 min: Liam Cooper almost made Perez’s day even worse with a clattering tackle but the Spanish striker gets up and keeps chasing. He’s worked hard, just not been Jamie Vardy. Three minutes were added on.
90 min: Under tries a shot. It goes, well, over.
89 min: Ayoze Perez has not had a good game. Getting in the way of Evans for what might have been the equaliser was perhaps the worst moment of a series of misfires.
87 min: Leeds’ quality on the counter has done what Leicester did to them earlier in the season. Leicester pushed on for the equaliser and got caught out. Without Jamie Vardy they have lacked an attacking threat.
85 min: Brendan Rodgers a sickened man. Bielsa still bawling away.
Updated
Goal! Leicester 1-3 Leeds (Harrison, 84)
Leeds score a superb goal on the counter. Justin is knocked over by Costa. Maddison whips in a free-kick. Leeds break and it goes all the way down the other end. Bamford charges on alone from his own half. Leicester have gambled and lost. Bamford steadies himself and plays in Harrison who plays it into an empty net.
Updated
82 min: Actually, it was Ricardo’s intervention that led to Struijk swinging at fresh air. Credit where it’s due.
81 min: Oof, Leeds close. This time it’s Leicester struggling at a set piece. The ball drops and Struijk is waiting, only to swing at fresh air.
80 min: Raphina is down with another of those muscle injuries. On comes Helder Costa for Leeds.
Under is on for Fofana for Leicester.
78 min: Leicester pushing on for their equaliser. They had previously won every game they had been ahead in.
76 min: Evans gets a chance to make instant amends but Meslier manages to claim the ball after Fofana’s grubber of a shot.
75 min: Panic in the Leeds ranks at a set piece. Fafana’s shot deflected over. Then Maddison takes, Soyuncu heads down and Evans misses what looks an open goal. In mitigation, he’s put off by Perez having unsighted him.
Updated
74 min: Klich is booked for a tackle that Mendy didn’t enjoy at all.
71 min: It looks like Leeds shifted their tactics there. They pushed up on Leicester when they had a throw and then worked it well with Raphina’s pearler of a pass.
Updated
Goal! Leicester 1-2 Leeds (Bamford, 70)
Leeds press the ball out from Leicester, great ball from Raphina, even better finish from Bamford with his left foot. Schmeichel had no chance. It dips over and Bielsa celebrates. Angrily.
Updated
68 min: Perez ploughing a lone furrow. He doesn’t have the speed of Vardy or the telepathic link with Barnes or Maddison. Vardy is distinctly better at unsettling opposition defenders too.
66 min: Both teams staying pretty rigid tactically. And intriguingly.
Updated
64 min: Leeds penned back, nowhere to go. Brendan will be enjoying out-tacticing El Loco, as he undoubtedly calls Bielsa, having read all those Jonathan Wilson books and that.
62 min: Tielemans has a dig from distance when a ball to Barnes might have been the more expedient option.
60 min: Justin Kavanagh now: “The Peacocks have been displaying their finery to good effect, but such fancydanery is always dangerous with the Foxes sniffing around. Speaking of nicknames, shouldn’t Leeds really update to “the Librarians,” what with all those man buns?”
59 min: Paulo gets in touch: “I see Marc Albrighton is playing. Are there any other footballers who has a rival team’s name in their surname? Is there, somewhere, a Luke McBlackburn for example?”
There was Gary Leeds, though he was actually a member of the Walker Brothers rather than a footballer.
58 min: Ricardo fancies a run, turns on himself and gets a shot in. Brendan’s tactical tweak has opened up space for Leicester and stopped Leeds swarming all over them.
56 min: Leicester going longer, and sitting off Leeds a little? Dallas is stuck like a limpet to Maddison, who has been negligible in this game.
55 min: Bielsa is doing a lot of shouting from his squat position. Looks like he left his bucket back at Thorp Arch. He will be stiff in the morning.
54 min: Leicester free-kick, from the right, but Maddison can only knock the ball off the head of Bamford.
53 min: Leicester pushing on harder this half. Meslier has to come out to stop Perez in his tracks. Ayling, bandaged up, comes back on.
51 min: Luke Ayling requires treatment on a head wound. His hair has come out of his top knot and that could be painful.
49 min: VAR alert. Cooper and Fafana in the Leeds box were all over each other. So no penalty for Leicester as they were both attempting to disrobe their opponent. Mike Dean, who is the virtual assistant robot today, says no.
48 min: Leicester fashion a chance. Tielemans plays in Justin but the wing-back - his new position this half - cannot direct the ball past Cooper, who comes across to block.
Updated
47 min: Brendan has gloves on. It must be cold. Did Bill Shankly or Jock Stein wear gloves?
46 min: A bit of in-game management there as they get back underway in the second half.
A Leicester change: Soyuncu is on, and Albrighton is on, suggesting that Brendan is going to a back three to combat the Leeds wave of pressing, perhaps flood the midfield.
Mary Waltz has been in touch. “Leeds is always on the razor’s edge of giving up multiple goals only to instantly flip to chances for their own scoring chances. Unpredictable yet so thrilling.”
Agreed.
Half-time: Leicester 1-1 Leeds
There was a quick exchange of goals but Leeds will be happier. Leicester and particularly Maddison have struggled to cope with their opponents’ pressing. There’s been a couple of moments where Kasper Schmeichel has been called into action and been forced to make excellent saves. Harvey Barnes, the Leicester scorer, has been dangerous.
45+1 min: Three minutes added on to the half.
45 min: Tielemans makes a hell of a yowl when he is tackled in the corner. Alioski’s tackle goes unpunished and the Belgian is OK to continue. Perhaps the yelp got the endorphins flowing.
43 min: Leeds chaos, and the ball comes out to Albrighton who plays the ball into a position of maximum opportunity only for Meslier to claw the ball into his grasp. Perez was lurking. But he ain’t no Jamie Vardy.
42 min: Leeds corner conceded by James Justin. That’s unconvincing too from Leeds.
40 min: Maddison whips in a corner. It’s cleared but Evans, still up for Leicester, holds it up there. Maddison whacks the ball off the post but there had been an infringement. Leeds unconvincing at set pieces.
38 min: First booking, Ayling’s topknot slows his down as he chases after Justin and he is forced to do a bit of shirt pulling.
36 min: Leicester sub, on comes Pereira for Castagne, who has a groin problem, like Leeds’ Rodrigo. The heavy workload is taking its toll on players.
35 min: Weaving run by Albrighton, and a link with Barnes sets up a shot for Albrighton, who can only shoot straight at Meslier. Leeds have let Leicester players run significant distances with the ball and looked vulnerable when doing so.
33 min: A goal each, a disallowed goal each. It’s been a good half. Leeds almost get another, a real goal, when Schmeichel is forced to make a low save from Raphinha. Leeds suddenly looking very dangerous and Brendan very concerned.
Updated
31 min: Leeds have the ball in the net, but again, it’s disallowed. Bamford’s header is well saved by Schmeichel, then drops to Klich who is centimetres out. But offside.
29 min: Harrison, one of Leeds’ top-knot crew, is chased down by the touchline. Nobody is getting much time on the ball.
Updated
27 min: Schmeichel almost lost the ball in the air when it deflected off Bamford, having already deflected up off a defender.
25 min: Bielsa squatting once more. Admirable quads for a man of his advancing years. His team are enjoying plenty of possession but have not found the penetration of that Dallas goal.
23 min: Leeds attack with Bamford’s control playing in Rafinha before Leicester clear the danger. Those two goals have really opened things up.
21 min: Rodrigo collapses again. He can’t continue. And on comes Klich.
20 min: Leicester have the ball in the net. Perez seizes on a rebound, and scores. But no, an offside flag denies him a second goal of the season.
18 min: Rodrigo is down, and his mime to the bench suggests a tweaked groin. Bielsa is on his bucket, striking up a stratagem to replace Rodrigo.
16 min: There goes the curse of calling a game cagey. Two counterattacks, two excellent goals but both goals that fed off mistakes.
Goal! Leicester 1-1 Leeds (Dallas, 15)
Well well. Maddison is caught napping and then Bamford plays in Dallas, who seizes on the ball and scores.
Updated
14 min: Gareth Southgate, in one of those masks with a filter, was watching that. Barnes is a player of such imagination, and that goal showed off his talents.
Updated
Goal! Leicester 1-0 Leeds (Barnes, 13)
Barnes carries the ball for sixty yards, exchanges passes with Maddison and he cuts inside and then shoots. What a goal, what a player.
Updated
11 min: Leicester sitting off a bit here, clearly aware of the pace of Leeds attacks. And the same would appear to go for Leeds’ fear of their opponent.
9 min: Leeds attack, a quick counter but the ball to Bamford is not of a sufficient angle for a shooting chance. Dallas’s shot comes to not much. It had to negotiate a crowd.
8 min: Ayling is brought down by Barnes but instead of attempting a free-kick at goal, Leeds play it short. Ayling launches a pass at the heart of Leicester’s defence but the ball is soon headed back to Schmeichel.
Updated
6 min: This cagey, as is always a holding comment at this point, usually followed by a deluge of action. Not much happening right now though.
4 min: Leicester dominating possession and territory with Leeds players chasing after them in the usual fashion. Bielsa is stood on the sidelines, the King Power dugout is quite far back so the view from his bucket may not be the best.
2 min: Albrighton - another one who might invoke the commentator’s tic - is bundled over. Maddison takes the free-kick and hammers it over the bar. It was ambitious to say the least.
1 min: And away we go, after a moment of the players taking the knee. Leeds kick off and then hoik the ball long towards Bamford.
The teams are in the tunnel, though they enter the field separately due to Covid regs. Leeds are in 12th but only a 6-0 win would take them up to 11th. Leicester can climb to second.
Marcelo Bielsa speaks.
One of the things that characterises Leicester is that when they miss a player they have someone of similar quality. I do not ignore the players they are missing, but the ones coming in are very good good too.
Memories of Muzzy Izzet. “Izzet? It is” was something of forerunner to the “yes, Ndidi” commentator’s tic.
📊 Kasper Schmeichel makes his 222nd PL app for Leicester, level with Muzzy Izzet for 2nd most PL apps for the club - only Jamie Vardy has made more (229)
— Sky Sports Statto (@SkySportsStatto) January 31, 2021
4 of the 6 PL matches with 38+ shots this season have involved Leeds, all of which have been away games pic.twitter.com/JKc3yw3ls3
Brendan Rodgers speaks.
Still such a long way to go and you can only train yourself. So it should be a really good game. We played really well up there this season, so we’ve got to stay focused. Papy’s played in a lot of big games for us this season and done exceptionally well so we’ve every confidence he can perform at a high level. It’s important in any team, of course, when you don’y have Jamie in the team, that incredible penetration in the middle of the field. Whenever he hasn’t played we’ve had to find another way to be creative and penetrate. Thankfully we’ve been able to do that. Hopefully he’ll be back soon. They’re still exactly the same, they go into every game with ambition. They want to create goals, they want to score goals. You have to make sure you can’t get involved in a basketball match, up and down the field. You know you will get chances and you’ve got to be ruthless in the game. It’s a tough game but they will play how they’ve played all season, very adventurous when going forward. They’ll give you space when you have the ball so the key is to exploit it.
Two teams who have had good seasons don’t feature in this, oddly enough.
Leicester are yet to lose a league game when Ndidi has partnered Youri Tielemans in central midfield so he might be a big miss for Brendan’s boys.
Papy Mendy comes in for the injured Wilfred Ndidi in Leicester’s only change from Wednesday’s 1-1 draw at The Ev.
⚠️ #LeiLee team news ⚠️
— Leicester City (@LCFC) January 31, 2021
Brought to you by @eToro 🔵
Come on, City! 🦊
Just one change for Leeds too.
📋 One change to the side which defeated Newcastle on Tuesday, Pascal Struijk in for Diego Llorente
— Leeds United (@LUFC) January 31, 2021
The teams
Leicester: Schmeichel, Castagne, Fofana, Evans, Justin, Mendy, Tielemans, Albrighton, Maddison, Barnes, Perez.
Subs: Soyuncu, Ward, Iheanacho, Amartey, Under, Choudhury, Ricardo Pereira, Fuchs, Thomas.
Leeds: Meslier, Ayling, Cooper, Struijk, Alioski, Phillips, Raphinha, Dallas, Rodrigo, Harrison, Bamford.
Subs: Poveda-Ocampo, Roberts, Casilla, Helder Costa, Hernandez, Davis, Cresswell, Klich, Shackleton.
Referee: Chris Kavanagh (Lancashire)
Preamble
Eleven days ago, Leicester beat Frank Lampard’s Chelsea and climbed to the top of the league. They were soon overtaken by Manchester United and a draw with Everton in midweek, and that after Jordan Pickford did a Jordan Pickford, means they cannot climb to the summit this week. Manchester City look fairly unmovable there at the moment. Anyway, Brendan Rodgers’ team brims with talent but a lack of Jamie Vardy means a lack of a standard bearer. It’s fair to say Ayoze Pérez struggled to replicate Vardy’s vim, vigour and vehemence against The Ev.
Leeds Leeds Leeds, then. They beat Newcastle in the week which, until Steve Bruce’s men beat The Ev yesterday, did not look like too much of an achievement. It was a better performance when previously in 2021 Leeds had looked
tired
lacklustre. Brendan is a big fan of Bielsa - of course he is - and paid tribute to the great man after his team won 4-1 at Elland Road in November, and classily too.
We can expect an open game, with two managers who like their teams to attack. And Kasper Schmeicehel is playing against his old club, one that binned him in 2011.
Kick-off at 2pm UK time. Join me.
