Goals from Pedro Porro and Jaime Vardy on either side of half-time saw the two teams play out a draw at the King Power Stadium in the final game of Matchday 1. New Delhi: Leicester City and Tottenham met at the King Power Stadium in the final game of Matchday One to play out an entertaining 1-1 draw. Leicester City’s first game back in the Premier League also marked the debut of new manager Steve Cooper, who replaced Enzo Maresca in the Foxes’ dugout following Maresca’s move to Chelsea in the off-season.
Cooper handed two of his new signings starts in his first Leicester City XI as both Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Brighton loanee Facundo Buonanotte started in attack behind veteran striker Jamie Vardy. The rest of the starting XI was pretty much what we saw throughout last season, with the only exception being at left-back. Victor Kristiansen started at left-back after spending the previous season on loan at Bologna.
Spurs manager Ange Postecoglu handed a debut to an attacker of his own as Dominic Solanke started for the Lillywhites after completing his big-money switch from Bournemouth. Former Leicester City playmaker, James Maddison, started behind him alongside Brennan Johnson and Heung Min Son. Other new signings like Archie Gray and Lucas Bergvall started from the bench alongside Timo Werner, whose loan was renewed for another season in the summer.
The game started after a moment of remembrance for former Leicester City manager Craig Shakespeare who tragically passed away on August 1, 2024. The first chance of the game came early in the sixth minute and went in favour of the visitors as James Maddison’s cross was met by Rodrigo Bentancur at the near post but his effort was cleared off the line by Wilfred Ndidi. This was followed by a couple of more chances for Spurs as both Dominic Solanke and Brennan Johnson failed to make Mads Hermansen in the Leicester goal sweat.
The North London side were dominating the opposition in the opening 15 minutes of the game, creating numerous chances and were being orchestrated by Maddison. The visitors were knocking at the Leicester City goal at every opportunity and finally made their efforts count just before the half an hour mark of the game. It was once again Maddison who made the move as he played a delicate cross towards the penalty spot from the left channel and perfectly found Pedro Porro in the middle of the box, whose delicate header found the bottom right corner of the goal to give the visitors a well-deserved lead.
Within minutes, Spurs almost made it two-nil after Maddison’s free-kick was met by Johnson but his shot went narrowly wide of Hermansen’s goal. Pedro Porro celebrates scoring the opening goal during the Premier League match between Leicester City FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC at The King Power Stadium on August 19, 2024. (Photo by Malcolm Couzens/Getty Images) The Lillywhites ended the half on top after totally outclassing their opposition as Leicester could make nothing of note in the entire half.
The half ended 1-0 in favour of Spurs but it could and probably should’ve been an even bigger lead for Postecoglu’s side who ended the half with an expected goals tally of 0.63 in comparison to Leicester City’s measly expected goals tally of 0.06.
Spurs got the second half started and seemed to carry on the form they showed in the first 45 minutes of the game. However, as the half wore on, Leicester City started growing into the game and it took them more than 50 minutes to actually start threatening the Spurs defence. De Cordova-Reid combined with Jamie Vardy to create their first proper chance before Solanke squandered another good opportunity to get a debut goal for himself.
Jamie Vardy celebrates after scoring to make it 1-1 during the Premier League match between Leicester City and Tottenham Hotspur at King Power Stadium on August 19, 2024. (Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images) Spurs were finally penalized for their missed opportunities as Victor Kristiansen played a vicious cross across the goal that was picked up by Abdul Fatawu, who played a perfect cross from the right which was met by Jamie Vardy in the box and the Foxes were back on level terms. Vardy’s equalizer for Spurs meant that he has now scored a combined 24 goals against both North London clubs, scoring 12 each against Arsenal and Spurs.
The Englishman’s goal seemed to have lit a fire under Leicester as they were the better team following the equalizer and seemed more like the Leicester side that fans had gotten used to ever since their 2015 Premier League triumph. Vardy had a glorious opportunity to give his side the lead after a beautiful move was created by De Cordova-Reid and Buonanotte, whose perfectly timed pass had Vardy through on goal but the Leicester striker could only send the shot straight at Vicario from his weaker foot. A few minutes after Vardy’s miss, Bentancur had to be taken off the field due to a head-to-head collision which led to a lengthy stoppage in play and it remains to be seen how long the Argentinian would be out for.
The game restarted after almost ten minutes and both sides charged forward in search of a winner. Both sides missed glorious opportunities in the final few minutes of the game as first Ndidi’s header towards goal was pushed out to the post by Vicario and then with the final chance of the game, Richarlison widely missed a free header from a Bergvall free-kick which sent Postecoglu down on his knees in despair at the touchline. The game ended level for both sides as neither side could quite provide the killing blow to their opposition.
Man of the Match James Maddison prepares to take a corner kick during the Premier League match between Leicester City FC and Tottenham Hotspur FC at The King Power Stadium on August 19, 2024. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images) This was a game of two halves where both teams shone brighter in separate halves. The first half of the game totally belonged to Spurs as they didn’t let Leicester settle down at all.
The second half was more in favour of the Foxes as they seemed the better team on multiple occasions, especially after equalizing. There were two players from both sides that shone brightly in the game, with Pedro Porro shinning for Spurs and Jamie Vardy shinning for Leicester City. However, no player seemed more involved in the game than former Leicester man James Maddison.
He was the star of the show at the King Power and was the fulcrum of everything that Spurs created, especially in the first half. Apart from assisting Porro’s opener, the English midfielder also maintained a pass accuracy of 87% throughout the game. He created three chances for his team, achieved a whopping 80 touches in the game, with six of those coming in the opposition box and produced 11 passes into the final third.
Maddison and Porro ruled the game for Spurs and it’s not surprising that these two were the ones that combined for Spur’s only goal of the match..
