Leicester City are the home side in this weekend’s Premier League fixture with Wolverhampton Wanderers.
Leicester will be looking to bounce back from a their spirited 2-1 defeat away at Manchester United, whilst newcomers Wolves will be looking for their first win of the season after a good 2-2 home draw to Everton.
It is the first league meeting between the two sides for five years and its fair to say that a lot has changed since that cold day back in January 2013. Nigel Pearson was at the helm for his first full season of his second stint as Leicester manager and was pushing for promotion from the Championship. Whereas counterpart Manager Dean Saunders had only been in charge of Woves for a matter of weeks after the departure of Ståle Solbakken and his team hadn’t won in six, finding themselves in serious danger of falling into the relegation places.
Leicester start brightly
The home side, who were riding the wave of four league wins on the bounce, came out firing and were very close to opening the scoring in the fourth minute when David Nugent’s long-range effort went just wide.
The barrage continued when new Foxes signing Chris Wood’s dipped shot from 25-yards clipped the crossbar. The New Zealand striker was in magnificent form for Leicester, scoring six goals in just four games.
The promotion-chasing home side continued to mount the pressure. The breakthrough eventually came in the 24th minute of time when winger Anthony Knockaert showed incredible flair and dribbled the ball into the Wolves area unchallenged and fired the ball past keeper Carl Ikeme from a tight angle.
Wolves skipper Karl Henry later showed his frustration by clipping the ankle of Welshman Andy King in a reckless challenge. He may havr counted himself lucky when the referee Robert Madley decided that a free-kick to the home side was enough of a punishment.
Visitors claw a goal back
Hopes were raised for the visitors, who levelled the match in the 51st minute with thanks to a spectacular driving effort from winger Bakary Sako.
The Frenchman showed craft and vision when his shot found the bottom-right corner of the goal from outside the penalty area which Leicester keeper Kasper Schmeichel was powerless to stop.
Nugent secures win
The Foxes increased the pressure after Sako’s equaliser, looking dangerous on the counter-attack. Eventually and possibly even inevitably, striker David Nugent scored Leicester’s second after he capitalised on some lacklustre defending which allowed him to run with the ball to the edge of the area before hitting the target with a powerful shot in the 73rd minute.
The home side were then in complete control and it seemed it was a matter of damage control for the visiting side.
Nugent was close to doubling his tally of the game in the 80th minute when a low cross found him inside the six-yard-box but he was unable to convert.
Three points clear
The game finished with the score 2-1 to the home side who celebrated their 5th Championship win on the bounce. This impressive run lifted the Foxes to second in the table with a three point cushion ahead of third place Hull City.
Meanwhile, Wolves were looking over shoulders finding themselves in 18th place just five points clear of safety.
After the game, Leicester manager Nigel Pearson Said
“It was nice to win a tight game like this with two bits of quality. The irony is that we scored our goals on the counter-attack and in the second half we really had to grind it out.”