What a fantastic weekend that was!
Saturday and we had our first home Saturday game as we missed the Coventry match. It was nice to get back into the routine of the Evening Star and Duke of Wellington before kick off. I thought we played really well against Preston.
The line up was
Kuipers (8/10)
Hinshelwood (6) Cullip (7) Butters (7) Harding (6)
Currie (7) Nicolas (7) Hammond (6) Jones (5) (Mayo (5) 80)
Knight (5) Virgo (8 my MOTM)
May, Molango, Jarrett and Hart not used
The defence looked much much better with Hinshelwood back in at right back. Hammond added something extra to the midfield and as for Adam " Joe Jordan" Virgo up front, well what a revelation.
He ran his socks off and scared the Preston defence. Currie continued with his superb crosses and corners and it eventually paid off.
Currie swung in a great corner, Virgo was all over the place unsettling the defence and it led to the Preston centre back kneeing the ball into the goal.
I thought Cullip was back to his old self and led the defence superbly. Currie and Nicolas are forging a good understanding and the other players are now gaining from a few proper matches together. Hammond I rate, and he didn't let anyone down.
Liz and I were booked on an 8.25 flight to Galway from Luton and, because the trains had all been cancelled, we had originally planned to leave at 4.30 to get an earlier train. Luckily my sister came along to the match and she was driving up to Birmingham for the weekend so gave us a lift meaning we only missed the last 4 minutes! Mac asked searching questions as I sneaked out, but we heard the final whistle in the car and celebrated the win.
On Sunday we saw the Saw Doctors in their home town gig in Tuam. We snatched a couple of hours sleep before catching the 7am flight from Galway to Birmingham on the Monday morning.
Once again my sister was going to the match so she picked us up at the airport and we were in Leicester by 10.30.
I imagine most people saw the game on Sky so just a few highlights.
The line up saw one enforced change (Harding out injured), but McGhee made a couple of tactical switches with Currie changing wings and El-Abd back in at right back.
Kuipers (8)
El-Abd (7)Cullip (8) Butters (8) Mayo (8)
Hinshelwood (6) Nicolas (8 my MOTM)) Hammond (7) Currie (6) (Jones (5) 83)
Knight (4) (Hart (5)74) Virgo (8) (Molango 90)
May and Jarrett not used
We defended superbly and Adam "I'll be Ronaldo today" Virgo rounded off the first half with a great strike of the ball leaving Walker diving at thin air to win us the match.
Nicolas and Mayo had superb games, and Cullip (and all the defence) in great form.
I thought our midfield was excellent, we hassled them, closed them down, chased the man on the ball, blocked shots, made many interceptions and forced the errors.
The silent Leicester fans only occasionally made noise and that was mostly to have a go at the players who clearly think they are too good for division 1.
Gillespie is a real prima donna!
It's going to be a long hard season for Phil B's mate, a few more bad results and he could be on his way.
So 6 points out of 6, a couple more than I expected!
Austria and Poland next before heading to Watford!
Mark R