Game Fifty Seven - Cheltenham Town Home

7 March 2009

Another home game and after the disappointment of a succession of draws on our own turf, the visit of lowly Cheltenham appeared to provide us with a real chance to take maximum points and lighten the tension around the place. Nothing is ever certain in football though and this was a potential banana skin for us and a game that in previous seasons would have resulted in an appalling one nil defeat. This is a new Leicester City now with a fighting spirit and a will to succeed. Surely even the return of numerous ex players and staff amongst the visitors could not upset what should be a routine victory?

Heuston.... problem.... I wrote the blog for this game and it hasn't saved for some reason and having spent an hour sorting it all out, I don't really fancy writing it once more so will just give a quick summary for now and possibly re-write it after the Tranmere game.

The game kicked off at a very slow pace with neither side eager to push forward to quickly and risk making a mistake. After 15 minutes though, City took the lead when a neat Cleverley cross was headed in at the back post by Steve Howard. Neat build up, neat cross, neat goal.

Fryatt doubled the lead after a Howard flick on from a long ball forward as City looked to run riot at the Walkers for the first time in a many weeks. Long range efforts from Oakley, King and Fryatt all just failed to find the back of the net with the visiting keeper having to make a few crucial saves to keep them in it.

After the break, Hobbs powered a header against the top of the crossbar from a corner before Cleverley made up for an earlier routine miss by scoring a great goal. He dispossed the left back on the touchline and then weaved his way into the box past two defenders and clipped the ball past the keeper. Very good finish and nice to see him making an impact after being recalled to the starting eleven by Nigel Pearson.

Oakley added a forth not long after thanks to some tricky footwork and a neat one two with Tom Cleverley who was instumental in three of the four goals on the day.

From that point on, it was just a routine performance with neither team pushing things more than needed to avoid the risk of any injury or over exhaustion ahead of a busy run in.

At the final whistle, we knew we were one step closer and we have one foot now firmly inside automatic promotion and it would really take a mammoth cock up to stop us going up now. In fact if we win at millwall on Saturday then I think the job is as good as done. Massive if though, as it will be a very tough game and they are one of the only teams to have actually beaten us this season!

Sorry about the shortness of this but as you can imagine, losing an hours work has left me feeling rather pissed off with this site at the moment - will be back on form for the visit to tranmere though... even if I have to hand write it and post it to everyone who reads this!!