Leicester City 3 - 1 Tranmere Rovers Match Report
By Mark Ridgway
August 25 2008
Despite their best performance of the season, Rovers fell 3-1 away at Leicester City on Saturday after a contraversial first goal for the home side. Chris Shuker netted Tranmere's goal ten minutes from the end of the game to make it 2-1 but Rovers went on to concede again late on.
Leicester C 3 - 1 Tranmere R
Howard 33 Shuker 79
Fryatt 53 and 90
CLICK HERE FOR MATCH STATISTICS
Rovers lost their second league game of the season away to Leicester on Saturday. Proven goal scorers Matty Fryatt and Steve Howard were on target as Rovers lost two goals from set pieces. Chris Shuker was on target for Rovers who had enough of the game to maybe earn a point.
There were two changes to the Rovers side that beat Hartlepool. The ill Ian Moore was replaced by Bas Savage up front and the injured Godwin Antwi was replaced by Gareth Edds, making his Rovers debut at right back. Rovers lined up in the the gold third strip for the first time this season.
The 4-3-3 recently played by Rovers turned into 4-5-1 at the Walkers stadium with Craig Curran and Edrissa Sonko used as wingers.
Coyne
Edds, Chorley , Goodison, Taylor
Curran, Jennings , Kay, O'Callaghan, Sonko
Savage
The first effort of goal came from Max Gradel of Leicester the winger who caused problems against Rovers for Bournemouth last season. He shot over on eight minutes.
Rovers first effort came from Ben Chorley who headed over from an Andy Taylor free kick on fifteen minutes. Rovers were winning the midfield, with Kay and Jennings battling to good effect. The home fans were not happy with what they were seeing.
Both teams then had chances as Steve Howard's shot was deflected over and soon after Craig Curran narrowly headed over for Rovers from a Sonko cross.
On 33 minutes the home side did take the lead with a quickly taken free kick which found Matt Oakley who squared for Steve Howard to score. The Rovers players weren't happy about the free kick being taken quickly when the ref had apparently said it wasn't allowed.
Matt Fryatt then flashed a shot wide just before half time as Rovers went in undeservedly a goal down.
Half-Time: Leicester City 1 - 0 Tranmere Rovers
The first real attack of the second half brought the second goal for the home side as Gradel crossed from a free-kick for Fryatt to head in and Rovers had conceded from a set piece for the second time.
Moore needed to change something and on the hour he reverted back to 4-4-2 bringing on Shuker and Greenacre to replace O'Callaghan and Sonko.
Dean Martin then kept hold of a 25-yard Shuker free kick and Kay shot wide from long range minutes later.
It should have been 2-1 on 77 minutes as Martin was caught in no-mans land off his line and when Savage nodded across goal Kay couldn't connect and Shuker shot over.
Kay then tested Martin a minute later but on 79 minutes Rovers finally got on the score sheet. Chris Greenacre battled well on the right wing and crossed for Chris Shuker to volley home from six yards.
Rovers threw men forward but couldn't equalise and instead were hit with the sucker punch in injury time as Matty Fryatt headied in after a game of head tennis on the Rovers goal line.
The fact that Fryatt was lucky to still be in the field after a horrible tackle on Andy Taylor only minutes earlier made it an even bigger blow for Rover to take.
Half-Time: Leicester City 3 - 1 Tranmere Rovers
CLICK HERE FOR VIDEO HIGHLIGHTS OF THE MATCH
Edrissa Sonko
On a day when Rovers put in good performance on the whole, it was Sonko who again looked the most threatening when Rovers went forward.
Apologies for the delay but as you may have noticed we have had technical problems this weekend with the site.
YOU PLAYED WELL , BUT WERE BEATEN BY A BETTER TEAM, LIVE WITH IT!!!
We were very poor I felt but thankfully managed to get the points. The tackle by Fryatt was nowhere near as bad as you were saying...certainly not worth a yellow card and definitely not a red!
I thought 2-1 would have been a fair reflection of the play.
(I liked your fans taking the P*ss out of our goal celebration music too...I find the music SO embarrassing!
)As for that tackle, I still think it was disgusting. Thankfully, Andy Taylor is a very honest player and perhaps if he didn't get up so quick the outcome of it may of been different? Some refeees opinions of a tackle can often be changed by the reaction of the player at times!
...see if that works! I meant it as I genuinely hate the music we play (not being sarcastic).
I think we'll have to agree to disagree about Fryatt's tackle...from my angle (I sit behind the goal at the opposite end to the away fans) it seemed like he ran into your player after the ball had gone but didn't do it with malice...I guess we were both as far away as each other for that one!
Anyway, thought you played well...I think we deserved a win but made hard work of it!
Good luck for the rest of the season (except against us, obviously!).
Chorley and Goodison were really good at the back, and I was thoroughly impressed by Gareth Edds too, but the midfield in general was weak, Kay and Jennings in particular doing very little right whilst Kay hardly played a good pass all game.
We had no penetration upfront and this was generally down to Savage drifting out wide on to the wings. As a target man, his role should be to play right down the centre and knock the ball out to Curran/Sonko/Greenacre/Moore or back to the midfield, he shouldn't be playing the winger. I thought that was actually key to our defeat as there was nobody in the middle for Savage to cross to once he got the ball.