CARLING PREMIER LEAGUE.

Leicester City v Southampton.

Saturday 16th October 1999.

Leicester (2) 2   Southampton (0) 1 FT
Guppy 8                Pahars 84
Cottee 39

Another Day In Paradise

Peter Gilbert 16.10.99
Well it was another day at the office, a typical Leicester City afternoon match.
It starts off by parking the car and listening to The Post Horn Gallop on Radio Leicester.  Then it's a walk to the ground and a gaze at the grass. Then we hold some banners up which indicate who we want out now.   Basically it' s the gang of 4 Pierpoint, Kinch, Smith and some other bloke who's unpopular with us. They're totally nondescript really and we shouldn't even know their names they just work in the shop.   I suppose we could all refuse to buy their merchandise, in fact if we all had a total ban on their stuff we could bring them to their knees but at what cost?
We'd make the club all the poorer in the end I suppose.
This continual turmoil in the wake of our great footballing success is unsettling but on Saturday afternoons it's not important at all.
We started the afternoon with Muzzy receiving his Carling Premiership player of the month award and how he deserves it.   We kicked off and took the game to the saints who were on something of a roll themselves.   Both teams whipped the ball about with great assurance and crispness which was very attractive to watch.   After only 8 minutes we struck the first deadly blow of the afternoon. The ball was passed across the halfway line and found it's way out to Impey who crossed a good ball. Heskey met the ball with his head but misdirected it. Fortunately it bounced off Muzzy and fell at Guppy's feet and he then lashed the ball home from 6 yards out........1-0.
The Saints rallied and Pahars raced at our defence but was rebuffed on the edge of the box.   Kachloul threatened down the left but our energetic midfielders put in some good tackles and our defenders picked up the pieces thanks very much.
On the half hour a familiar incident saw Guppy receive and cross the ball, the ball hit the pin ball machine and Cottee pounced to make it 2-0.
This riled the Saints who's fans had been good enough to hold up 'Gang of 4' out placards and had been applauded by the Kop who also sang a bit of  'When the Saints'  to them.  However on the pitch all was not well and some minor incident spilled over which caused Heskey and Marsden to swing their handbags at each other.
At half time Birch made a speech.......again........it's all very tiresome we just want to watch football which to be fair is about what he said.
In the second half Le Tissier came on and he flicked and tapped and stroked the ball about beautifully which eventually created the best move of the game which Pahars converted into a goal and a game where we were cruising suddenly became something a little closer to a cliffhanger.
Before that though Kevin Davies had replaced Hughes and been abruptly sent off for 'wounding' Gerry Taggart who was carried off to be stitched up. Gilchrist came on and later Zagorakis for a worn out Savage.
In the end though we did just enough to warrant the three points to see us notch up our 7th consecutive unbeaten game.   We go 5th in the league, we've taken 10 from the last 12 points and this is our best start to a Premiership season ever. We've got 20 points. we're on course for Route 66 (see article) and Europe and we're almost halfway there to avoiding relegation again which must be our prime objective, after that we'll see what we can win.
I won't mention the teams below us but there are only 4 teams above us.A consistent patch between now and the next 1000 years would do very nicely thank you.

Leicester: Flowers, Sinclair, Taggart (Gilchrist, 77), Elliott, Impey, Savage (Zagorakis, 89), Izzet, Lennon, Guppy, Cottee (Marshall, 86), Heskey.

Subs not used: Arphexad, Oakes.

Booked: Savage, Heskey.

Southampton: Jones, Dodd, Lundekvam, Richards, Benali (Boa Morte, 88), Ripley (Le Tissier, 46), Soltvedt, Hughes (Davies, 67), Marsden, Kachloul, Pahars.

Subs not used: Moss, Colleter.

Booked: Lundekvam, Kachloul.

Sent off: Davies 76.

Attendance: 19,556.

Referee: B Knight