Leicester City comfortably beat Tranmere Rovers 4-0 in the League Cup at the King Power on Tuesday night. Jordan Ayew opened his Leicester City account with an impressive long-range strike after half an hour. Stephy Mavididi converted a penalty won by Ricardo shortly after half-time. Wilfred Ndidi added a third from close range midway through the second half and Harry Winks rounded off the scoring with a cracker from the edge of the box.

Photo by Joe Giddens/PA Images via Getty Images

The class difference between City and their League Two visitors was clear from kick-off as Leicester dominated the possession and shot statistics. The Foxes had over 71% of the ball and outscored Rovers 22-3 (8 vs. 0 on target). It was the kind of game in which expected Leicester dominate, but anyone who has followed the Foxes for any length of time knows that this is often difficult for them.

And Matt Elliott just can’t get away from it. To be honest, it was Gerry Taggart’s run to the near post that made the second goal possible in the first place 😉

There is little point in talking about the defenders or goalkeeper Danny Ward. They were spectators for most of the game. They did their job when asked, but precious little was asked of them. Winks and Oliver Skipp formed a convincing midfield pairing, as clean as any you can imagine. Mavididi was too much for his markers and Kasey McAteer was quiet in the first half but came into the game better in the second. Ndidi is frustrating at times as his ability does not always match his intelligence and positioning but he deserved to score a goal by being in the right place at the right time. And finally, Jordan Ayew did the job he was asked to do and did it well. His goal was well taken and will make coach Steve Cooper believe he has a credible attacking option at his disposal.

Sorry for the long paragraph, SEO bots. I won’t let that happen again.

Three takeways:

1. We didn’t learn much about the team today, but that’s about the best we could hope for. When you’re playing against a League Two side, you can’t get too carried away with the positives. Leicester City should be able to handle them without making a big fuss. But there are a lot of negatives to take from the game if things don’t go well. A bad result could have caused a crisis of confidence, and we avoided that completely. Job done.
2. We have enough depth to sustain a cup run. We put a pretty decent team on the field today without relying too heavily on our starting XI from the first two league games. I have a feeling we will see some players come in (El Khannouss) and go out (Soumare, Cannon) but we definitely have the players to field a representative team and I wasn’t sure that would be the case.
3. It was great to see Will Alves and Greg Popov out there today. Alves has been the future for several years and looks set to step back into that role after a long injury layoff. Popov is not a player I would have expected to see in the first team this year but I am excited to see what he can do. Both impressed in their cameos tonight and he will hope they can build on that.

Photo by Plumb Images/Leicester City FC via Getty Images

We will find out our opponents in the third round of the League Cup on Wednesday evening. We will then host Aston Villa at the King Power on Saturday before the first international break of the season begins.

Leicester City: Ward, Ricardo (C), Okoli, Faes (Coady 72′), Thomas, Winks, Skipp (Choudhury 63′), Ndidi (Alves 72′), Mavididi, McAteer (Fatawu 83′), Ayew (Popov 72 ‘)

Tranmere Rovers: Murphy, Norman, Walker (Wood 62′), Davies (C), Turnbull, Saunders (Dennis 62′), O’Connor (Williams 75′), Merrie, Patrick (Solomon 75′), Jennings, Davison ( Bradshaw 62′)