Cardiff City outshone but not outworked in defeat to classy leaders Leicester City

Cardiff City suffered a home defeat to leaders Leicester City on Friday night after failing to match the quality of their visitors. The Foxes are looking a cert for automatic promotion, and they showed why at the Cardiff City Stadium.

Cardiff put on a brave performance, clearly working above their usual level in a bid to thwart the Foxes, but they were not able to bridge the quality gap, with Leicester having kept many of their stars from their Premier League days.

Star man Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall opened the scoring in the 18th minute, showing excellent control to cut inside and find the far bottom corner. Cardiff lost Karlan Grant to a hamstring injury shortly after, and they struggled to create in general, despite escaping their own half periodically.

Leicester controlled the ball for the most part and put together some fine passing moves, but Cardiff managed one more shot on the whole, even if they settled for two less shots on target. Then again, Leicester created much better chances, hitting the woodwork on more than one occasion.

The winner came in 55th minute, and while the Bluebirds could have dealt with the attack a little earlier, there was little they could do to stop James Justin’s super strike from all of 30 yards. The goal will go down as one of the Championship goals of the season.

Erol Bulut’s men now fall five points behind the playoff pace ahead of their trip to London to take on QPR on New Year’s Day, but there is little shame in losing to this Leicester side, who may well set the Championship points record. The Foxes have won 20 of the first 25 games, losing only three times.