Leicester City 0 Leeds United 0 match report: Championship duo in forgettable goalless draw
Independent 11/8/13
Wayne Gardiner
Leicester and Leeds played out an instantly forgettable goalless draw at the King Power Stadium this afternoon, keeping their unbeaten starts to the season going in the process.
Both sides won their respective Sky Bet Championship and Capital One Cup openers 2-1 and extended their sequence to three today, but this was not a game either manager will want to watch again in a hurry.
The sides adopted a shut-up-shop policy for most of the piece, only really opening up in a final quarter during which Leicester looked the liveliest with Chris Wood hitting the post.
That alone probably gave them the right to claim they deserved more, although Leeds manager Brian McDermott will no doubt be happy to have taken an away point from one of last season's play-off semi-finalists.
His men had to weather some relative heavy storms at times, although it was not until Wood came on that Leicester possessed any real bite and fans of both sides will hope better lies ahead.
The start to the game actually proved a source of false hope, with Leeds quick out of the blocks when new captain Rodolph Austin had a strike charged down.
His was a half-chance but Jason Pearce's on six minutes was a full one, the centre-half badly heading a Noel Hunt cross over from six yards.
Pearce struggled at the other end too and took an early booking when he was outpaced by Jamie Vardy and could do nothing more than shove him over, but the former Portsmouth man redeemed himself when he halted David Nugent's menacing run into the box.
That was as exciting as the first half got, though, and save for another blocked Austin shot, half time arrived without incident.
The second half hardly started at pace either, with Vardy seeing a header deflected over, before a clear sight of goal finally arrived in the 66th minute. Danny Drinkwater was the recipient of it, taking in Liam Moore's pass from the left, but his shot was high, wide and wasteful.
The Foxes were at least looking to make something happen and Nugent nearly did with a curling effort that had everything bar direction, and that spurred Leeds into life with only the brute strength of Wes Morgan stopping substitute Dominic Poleon getting a shot in.
All of a sudden the game was living up to its promise and Vardy forced the first save of the match with a 73rd-minute hit which Paddy Kenny parried, before the duo took each other on again with the goalkeeper quick off his line to put a clean-through Vardy off.
Wood then replaced Vardy and within minutes of his introduction the New Zealander produced the game's stand-out moment. He picked the ball up on the right and tortured the yellow-carded Pearce before giving him the slip and cracking a low drive against Kenny's left-hand post.
There was still time for Leeds to finally threaten after that, but Matt Smith was unable to direct a back-post header beyond Kasper Schmeichel.
Leicester and Leeds played out an instantly forgettable goalless draw at the King Power Stadium this afternoon, keeping their unbeaten starts to the season going in the process.
Both sides won their respective Sky Bet Championship and Capital One Cup openers 2-1 and extended their sequence to three today, but this was not a game either manager will want to watch again in a hurry.
The sides adopted a shut-up-shop policy for most of the piece, only really opening up in a final quarter during which Leicester looked the liveliest with Chris Wood hitting the post.
That alone probably gave them the right to claim they deserved more, although Leeds manager Brian McDermott will no doubt be happy to have taken an away point from one of last season's play-off semi-finalists.
His men had to weather some relative heavy storms at times, although it was not until Wood came on that Leicester possessed any real bite and fans of both sides will hope better lies ahead.
The start to the game actually proved a source of false hope, with Leeds quick out of the blocks when new captain Rodolph Austin had a strike charged down.
His was a half-chance but Jason Pearce's on six minutes was a full one, the centre-half badly heading a Noel Hunt cross over from six yards.
Pearce struggled at the other end too and took an early booking when he was outpaced by Jamie Vardy and could do nothing more than shove him over, but the former Portsmouth man redeemed himself when he halted David Nugent's menacing run into the box.
That was as exciting as the first half got, though, and save for another blocked Austin shot, half time arrived without incident.
The second half hardly started at pace either, with Vardy seeing a header deflected over, before a clear sight of goal finally arrived in the 66th minute. Danny Drinkwater was the recipient of it, taking in Liam Moore's pass from the left, but his shot was high, wide and wasteful.
The Foxes were at least looking to make something happen and Nugent nearly did with a curling effort that had everything bar direction, and that spurred Leeds into life with only the brute strength of Wes Morgan stopping substitute Dominic Poleon getting a shot in.
All of a sudden the game was living up to its promise and Vardy forced the first save of the match with a 73rd-minute hit which Paddy Kenny parried, before the duo took each other on again with the goalkeeper quick off his line to put a clean-through Vardy off.
Wood then replaced Vardy and within minutes of his introduction the New Zealander produced the game's stand-out moment. He picked the ball up on the right and tortured the yellow-carded Pearce before giving him the slip and cracking a low drive against Kenny's left-hand post.
There was still time for Leeds to finally threaten after that, but Matt Smith was unable to direct a back-post header beyond Kasper Schmeichel.