‘Straight back up, straight back up,’ sang Leicester City’s travelling contingent in West Yorkshire. ‘Playing football the Enzo way.’
For much of this game Enzo Maresca’s Guardiola-inspired tippy-tappy met its match in Neil Warnock’s no-frills Huddersfield Town.
But just as the Terriers began to see an unexpected point against the promotion favourites come into view, Stephy Mavididi popped up to maintain Leicester’s perfect start.
Mavididi, who cost £6.4million from Montpellier, is the kind of signing Huddersfield can only dream of in a summer that so far seen them bring in only a back-up goalkeeper and a right-back on loan from Stoke.
Leicester may have lost a lot of big names after relegation but their squad remains infused with quality and Mavididi is one of several match-winners.
But they undoubtedly had to graft for these three points. Huddersfield are everything you’d expect from a Warnock side and a man with 43 years of management under his belt has little time for fancy stuff.
Huddersfield refused to give Leicester a moment’s peace, pinning them high up the field and actually created some excellent openings of their own. Late on, Leicester were forced to defend for their lives at time.
Warnock claimed ahead of this one that the Foxes have two sides capable of winning promotion from the Championship and it didn’t take long for the visitors to send a shot across the bows.
A quick break inside the opening 60 seconds culminated in Wanya Marcal-Madivadua, their Portuguese academy graduate, shooting high and wide after driving in from the right.
The dye was quickly cast, with Maresca’s team building out patiently from defence and Huddersfield’s forward line sweating buckets trying to hem them in.
But given Leicester’s talent, they were more than capable of breaking the Terriers’ lines. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall slipped Kelechi Iheanacho through on 15 minutes, only for Matty Pearson to deflect his shot over.
An ever better opening came a few minutes later with Ricardo Pereira’s incisive slide-rule pass setting Dennis Praet clean through on goal. Praet if anything had too much time and his eventual right-footed shot was well anticipated by Lee Nicholls.
Iheanacho was denied by Nicholls from just outside the box but Huddersfield finally settled and began to cause Leicester a few problems.
Josh Koroma stepped inside from the left and forced Leicester keeper Jakub Stolarczyk, in for the injured summer signing Mads Hermansen, into a fingertip save with a curling effort.
And the Yorkshire side really should have led when Michal Helik ghosted unnoticed to the back post but sent Sorba Thomas’s whipped cross over from mere yards out.
There was immediate Huddersfield intent after the restart when Danny Ward headed over from a Josh Ruffels cross and Stolarczyk pushed out Brahima Diarra’s potent strike.
Warnock liked what he was seeing and at one point the 74-year-old dashed over into Leicester’s technical area to retrieve the ball for a quick throw.
As if to highlight Leicester’s depth of quality, Maresca turned first to Wilfred Ndidi and then Jamie Vardy from the substitutes’ bench as their search for a breakthrough went on.
Dewsbury-Hall tried to weave his way into a scoring position as Leicester turned the screw but Helik threw his body in the way for another crucial block.
The Pole then slid in to prevent Dewsbury-Hall’s attempted through pass to Vardy reaching its destination.
But when Dewsbury-Hall passed left to Mavididi, the former Arsenal winger feinted to throw Tom Edwards off balance and then struck left-footed to the near post. Nicholls should have done better as the shot crept in.
Huddersfield pressured in the closing moments but were indebted to Nicholls for a one-handed stop to deny Dewsbury-Hall in stoppage time.
