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Leicester City picked up their third win in four by beating Wigan Athletic on Tuesday evening.
Russell Martin’s side were comfortable at the King Power Stadium, but it certainly wasn’t a vintage performance by any means.
Leicester played well in patches, but there was a clear lack of quality against a very poor Wigan outfit, who sit rock bottom of League One.
That said, here are the three key takeaways from the 3-0 victory, which moves City within a few points of the play-off spots.
Alex McCarthy was Leicester’s glaring weak link earlier in the season, with his poor distribution leading to a number of turnovers and goals conceded.
But McCarthy has improved significantly of late and is now keeping it simple when playing out from the back.
He’s also consistently bailing Leicester out with some top-class saves, and Martin highlighted the 36-year-old’s performance levels after the Wigan game last night.
“Alex produced two really good saves, one from outside the box, one from in. He’s been huge for us recently, I’m loving how Alex is playing.”
Sammy Braybrooke was dropped to the bench for Conor Chaplin last night, probably just to manage his minutes rather than a tactical decision.
Braybrooke came on with half an hour to go, and Leicester just looked so much better when he was on the pitch.
The City academy graduate was energetic, tenacious and always looked to play through the lines with a quick pass.
According to Sofascore data, Braybrooke made nine carries, completed 91% of his passes and won four duels.
It was an impressive cameo which really highlighted his importance to Martin’s side.
Ilari Kangasniemi has hardly had a look-in since joining from Finnish top-flight side FC Inter Turku in the summer.
Martin is clearly keen to give the 19-year-old time to settle in, but he did get 10 minutes off the bench last night.
As Callum_boyle pointed out on TalkingPoints, Kangasniemi made an immediate impression and looked like a real powerhouse going forward.
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callum_boyle
Wigan might be the worst team I’ve seen us play and that says a lot as I don’t think we were outstanding in any way. If anything we were quite poor but a win is a win. Kangasniemi doing more in 10 mins than our other CB’s and Braybrooke proving why he has to start. Thank the lord for an actual striker too
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The Finland under-21 international was deployed as a left-back, and he motored forward on a number of occasions, causing havoc to the Wigan backline.
In fact, Kangasniemi should’ve been awarded a penalty as he was hauled down after flicking the ball over Wigan’s right-back in the box.
With Caleb Okoli underperforming, surely the towering centre-back will be handed his full debut at centre-back soon.