Stubborn City Sneak into Sixth!

I wrote in the week that Leicester City needed the most unlikely of miracles to secure a play-off place. That is exactly what the Foxes got this afternoon. Not only did Leicester secure their first away victory at Nottingham Forest in over 40 years, but Bolton failed to win their final home game against a Blackpool side who had nothing to play for. Through the course of the afternoon, 6th place changed hands on 4 separate occasions. The final and crucial change came when Anthony Knockaert poked home an injury time winner to put City into 6th place on goal difference. It could scarcely have been more dramatic.

The game started badly for the Foxes when Simon Cox's early shot put Nottingham Forest 1-0 up. Matty James notched the equaliser in the 24th minute after his deflected shot found the back of the net. Just before half time, King headed home Knockaert's excellent cross to give City the lead and fire the Foxes into 6th place. At that stage, Blackpool were 2-0 up at Bolton and things looked like they were going in Leicester's favour. However, Bolton scored twice in a minute to level their game at 2-2 and 5 minutes into the second half, Ward scored for Forest to make it 2-2 as well.

It looked at that stage as though it wasn't going to be Leicester's afternoon but there was time for one final dramatic twist. Forest pushed forward in search of a winner, to snatch a place in the play-offs for themselves. This left them exposed at the back and Knockaert and Wood were able to capitalise. Knockaert played Wood in on goal and the Kiwi striker, unselfishly and calmly, pushed the ball back into Knockaert's path. The Frenchman slotted the ball home, ripped off his shirt and jumped into a crowd of 2025 rapturous Leicester fans. A nail-biting few minutes followed, in which Leicester and Blackpool both held on. A remarkable day.

Ironically, there may well be a psychological shift amongst the play-off contenders now. Leicester have snuck into 6th place, having thought that they'd thrown their chance away weeks ago. They go into the play-offs with real momentum and a winning feeling. By contrast, their opponents Watford are shell-shocked. The Hornets lost their final home game of the season to Leeds today and miss out on automatic promotion as a result.

Watford goalkeeper Almunia was injured in the warm-up and replacement Jonathan Bond was stretchered off with a serious neck injury during the game. To add insult to injury, one of Watford's leading scorers, Troy Deeney, was sent off and will automatically miss the first leg of the play-off semi finals. That match takes place on Thursday night at the Walkers Stadium with the return match at Vicarage Road on Sunday lunchtime. Not long then for Gianfranco Zola to pick his players up after such a draining afternoon. Nigel Pearson will have no such problems and his team will be buzzing about their dramatic reprieve this afternoon. I know which camp I would rather be in ahead of Thursday night...