Abdul Fatawu’s stunning early goal and Ricardo Pereira’s late effort gave Leicester a hard-fought but deserved victory over Birmingham in the Championship. Fatawu’s brilliant finish lit up a game of precious few chances, as these two Midlands rivals slugged it out under the lights at the KP Stadium.
Chris Davies’s side, who came into the contest unbeaten in the second tier, improved as the match between two of the league’s most fancied clubs wore on. But with Jay Stansfield ruled out they struggled to create enough to trouble Martí Cifuentes’s side, before the Leicester substitute pounced following 16-year-old Jeremy Monga’s memorable assist.
Both teams went into the match in encouraging form, taking maximum points from their most recent outings in a competition famed for its unpredictability. A shock midweek Carabao Cup defeat by Port Vale appeared to have dented Birmingham’s confidence early on, however, although Davies’s players applied the same suffocating press so beloved of his mentor Brendan Rodgers.
There was a league debut for Lewis Koumas, after his loan move from Liverpool, but the absence of Birmingham’s attacking talisman Stansfield through injury did not prompt a tactical change of plan, with Leicester being harried whenever they were in possession. Thanks to the style Cifuentes wants to implement, that was for the most part of the opening exchanges.
Survival was the Spaniard’s primary ambition while in charge at QPR. Having succeeded Ruud van Nistelrooy after Leicester’s slide into the second tier, it is now about revival.
With only eight minutes gone, Fatawu rifled in the opener. Some hesitant defending from Ethan Laird caused confusion in Birmingham’s rearguard, in turn allowing the teenager Louis Page to slip the ball to the Ghana international, who casually cut inside before smashing it into the top corner of the net.
Birmingham finally began to build some rhythm midway through the first half but they still struggled to properly test a rearguard marshalled by Jannik Vestergaard.
If the visitors have a weakness, it is failing to create the number of clearcut opportunities Davies would like. One appeared to have presented itself midway through the first half when the ball fell kindly at Tomoki Iwata’s feet on the edge of the box. But, rather than shoot, the Japanese midfielder elected to try to pass instead. It summed up their work after Fatawu’s goal – plenty of promise but very little threat.
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What Birmingham had not shed, however, was their hesitancy. Immediately after the restart, Christoph Klarer was forced to recover from an untimely slip to prevent Jordan Ayew from having a clear run at the goalkeeper Ryan Allsop.
The visitors improved as the night wore on but Pereira made the points safe in the 88th minute, after profiting from fine work by his fellow substitute Monga.
The win, Leicester’s third in four matches, lifts them to third in the table, while Birmingham lie seventh.
