West Ham produced a near-flawless away performance as they handed Leicester City their first loss of the 2020/21 Premier League season. The Foxes, coming off a fine 5-2 win at the Etihad against Man City last weekend, were aiming to win the opening four games of a top flight season for the first time in their history, but were outclassed by the visitors at the King Power Stadium.
Here are our talking points from the game.
No shot on target for Leicester: Bizarre as it may sound, Leicester, who had put five past Pep Guardiola’s City in Round 3, failed to register even a single shot on target in this game. It’s only the third time the Foxes have failed to do at home in the modern Premier League era.
Brendan Rodgers’ men had nearly 70% of possession and 670 passes to the Hammers’ 291, but could simply not find a way through as the visitors defended resolutely. Harvey Barnes did manage to find the back of the net in second half stoppage time (a very nice team goal btw), but it was reversed by VAR.
For a team that’s been defensively vulnerable, especially on the road, this was a fine, fine performance from West Ham and a well deserved clean sheet for Lukasz Fabianski.
Vladimir Coufal impressive on debut: The new Czech signing made his debut at right back in place of the injured Ryan Fredericks and put in a very assured performance here. Going up against Harvey Barnes away from home isn’t easy by any stretch of imagination, but Coufal set the tone for the game when he won an early 5th minute free kick against the Leicester winger.
In the 16th minute, he put in a nice tackle to stop Jamie Vardy in his tracks after the latter had turned Angelo Ogbonna inside out, and in the 22nd minute, he went over to the other side to stop a Castagne cross that could’ve easily resulted in a Leicester goal. [Read more…]
