Choudhury at right-back for practice match at King Power
CITY NEWS ‘HOME’ AND ‘AWAY’ TEAMS DREW 1-1 IN BUILD-UP FOR WATFORD GAME
TWO Leicester City 11s faced off at an empty King Power Stadium on Saturday as Brendan Rodgers prepared his team for life behind closed doors.
At the end of a third week back at training, the City squad headed to their home ground for a rain-soaked match, with just a fortnight remaining until they take on Watford in their first match after the Premier League’s restart.
With a fixture on the horizon, Rodgers will now be thinking about the line-up he will field at Vicarage Road.
But Saturday’s teams did not give away too many clues, with the two sets of 11 a mix of the side expected to run out against the Hornets.
In the home blue strip were Kasper Schmeichel and his usual centre-back duo Jonny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu.
In the full-back roles were Christian Fuchs and, interestingly, Hamza Choudhury.
Rodgers is short on right-backs with Ricardo Pereira and Daniel Amartey injured, and youngsters Vontae Daley-Campbell and Dennis Gyamfi have been in training, but Choudhury was given the nod at the King Power Stadium on Saturday.
He has played there once before for the first team, in 2018’s season closer at Wembley, a 5-4 defeat to
Tottenham. For the blues, Wilfred Ndidi, Matty James and James Maddison made up the midfield, with Marc Albrighton on the right, Harvey Barnes on the left, and Jamie Vardy leading the line.
In the black away strip, Danny Ward was between the sticks with a back four of James Justin, Wes Morgan, Ryan Bennett, and Ben Chilwell.
Papy Mendy, Dennis Praet, and Youri Tielemans made up the midfield trio, with Demarai Gray wide left and Bartosz Kapustka on the right.
The Pole is not in the Premier League squad as things stand, although clubs may be permitted to make changes before the campaign resumes.
Completing the “away” line-up was Kelechi Iheanacho.
The club’s footage from the match showed a goal apiece was scored, Ndidi netting for the blues before countryman Iheanacho replied, turning in Gray’s cross.
Young left-back Luke Thomas was also given a run-out, coming on for the ‘home’ team.
However, it did not appear that Ayoze Perez was given any pitchtime. The Spaniard was captured warming up on the sidelines with back-up goalkeepers Eldin Jakupovic and Viktor Johansson.
With no external referees permitted due to current Covid-19 guidelines, goalkeeping coach Mike Stowell acted as referee.