To slate-grey north Kent, and the latest rickety stop on the Leicester redemption tour. If Kent is the garden of England, then Gillingham is the unloved bit round the back of the garden shed, consisting of a pile of bricks, a broken child’s tricycle and several soaking cardboard boxes. For Brendan Rodgers’s ailing side, this felt like the perfect spot for an ambush.
In the event disaster was averted, but little else. Kelechi Iheanacho delivered the goods early in the second half, maintaining a remarkable scoring record in the FA Cup. This was his 16th goal, moving him 15th on the all-time competition list. And though there were few alarms for the 2021 winners as they saw out their slender lead, there was precious little to cheer them either: lots of pointless possession, a distinct lack of ideas and numerous abortive diagonal passes. A more confident opponent might have caused them real problems.
