Third time

Leicester City 0 - 2 Tottenham Hotspur - F.A. Cup 3rd round replay - January 21st, 2016

deserved.

Spurs played Leicester for the third time in a week and a half in their third round F.A. Cup replay and they finally got the win their play deserved over the previous games.

A friend of a friend said he was backing Spurs to win this latest game against Leicester because he’d watched the previous two games and Spurs had beaten them both times… just not won.

It was much the same last night as both teams, even with plenty of changes, played the way they play. Much like the original cup game Spurs had all the ball while Leicester struggle without a striker with pace. The main difference being while Spurs had the ball they were generally inept with it during most of the first half.

In that first game it was lovely stuff up until crunch time when the final ball was lacking or chances squandered or shots taken from outside the box. This time they were lucky if they got that close to the home side’s box. Some of the passing, well it would be kind to call it inept.

An awful lot of Chuckle Brothers passing and Rod Wallace balls.

The former is needles sideways to me to, you stuff. Well what would expect with the king of the stats padding needless sideways ball Bentaleb in there. If he was half as good as he thought he was, he’d be a million times better than he actually is. Can’t tackle, can’t pass, can’t go forward, can’t be arsed. Just don’t understand the love for this nothing player.

So when he wasn’t needlessly passing to Dier or Wimmer, right next to him, it was going wide. Well when it went to Walker he dithered and lost the ball or it went to Davies and always went behind him. The number of times Davies was clear and he had to stop go back and pick up the ball was infuriating. He did put in a cracking cross that Lamela should probably have done better with, wasn’t the Argentinian’s best night. Trippier’s crossing from the right was missed.

Lamela did start the move that was the only real moment of class in the first half which led to Son’s opener not long before half-time. His pass to Carroll was brilliantly played on by the youngster to Son, who was showed onto his right and took second invitation to do so before banging a curler round Schmeichel. Hit early, hard and with some movement the ‘keeper had no chance even at his near post.

At the break Ranieri did what he did in that first game, brought on Okazaki. That and the later introduction of Albrighton improved things for the hosts. Vorm had to make one great save from Gray’s curler, after Bentaleb stupidity in front of the defence, getting in Dier’s way, gifted Leicester the chance.

The second bit of class came just after the hour. Again it was from Son but this time as provider. His lovely ball into the box, perfectly weighted, right onto Chadli’s foot for him to double the lead. He didn’t have to think about it, least he didn’t think about it and unlike the rest of the night he didn’t cut back, try and take someone on needlessly and lose the ball.

Leicester had chances, Vorm save from Albrighton, but it felt like this time they weren’t going to pull it off, even with the appearance of Vardy.

So Colchester in the 4th round. Hopefully just one game this time and hopefully a better viewing experience.

The BBC are losing all their sport and well with this broadcast you can see why. Don’t know if was a joint BBC/BT thing like some of the game in the 3rd round. Just know it was awful. Why was Ian Wright in the studio, no one knows. O’Neill and Jenas were enough. But then we had the constant wittering of the commentators. Jonathan Pearce who desperately wanted a Leicester goal, followed by a Leicester win and Zinedine Kilbane droning on whenever Pearce shut up. Klbane another example of a very mediocre player turned very mediocre pundit.

It was like a radio broadcast, they just never shut up. Even more so in the fact the camera’s kept showing us numerous other things while the action was ongoing, managers, crowd, the bench – don’t know how long we saw Vardy sitting on the bench at one time but it seemed like minutes. Just like radio where you know there’s action going on because of the crowd noise by the commentators are talking about Liverpool, or their trip to the ground, anything but what is going on in this game.

Oh and he got 6/4 on a Spurs win. Pinching money he said.

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