Leicester City 4-1 Watford: Youri Tielemans & James Maddison help FA Cup holders through
- Published
- comments
FA Cup highlights: Leicester City 4-1 Watford
FA Cup holders Leicester City made an impressive start to their defence of the trophy as the much-changed Foxes swept aside fellow shadow side Watford.
Youri Tielemans - who scored City's winner at Wembley last May - put them ahead from the spot after Francisco Sierralta fouled Jannik Vestergaard.
James Maddison's cool finish doubled the lead but Joao Pedro immediately pulled one back for the Hornets.
However, strikes from Harvey Barnes and Marc Albrighton sealed an emphatic win.
The sides made 16 changes between them - Leicester nine and Watford seven - from their previous Premier League games, with the majority enforced by injury or Africa Cup of Nations duty.
But Leicester's mix of youth and experience proved too much for a Watford side of similar ilk - and not even a floodlight failure that lasted several minutes could knock the hosts out of their stride.
Unfamiliar Foxes but a familiar result
Tielemans was one of only two Foxes players in the starting line-up that began last year's win in the final against Chelsea - Ayoze Perez was the other - in an illustration of the injury and unavailability issues Brendan Rodgers had to deal with.
Hamstring injuries for Jamie Vardy and Jonny Evans are part of a Leicester injury tally that runs into double figures, while Kelechi Iheanacho and Daniel Amartey are at the Africa Cup of Nations.
Nevertheless, the FA Cup holders produced a scintillating display despite fielding a weakened side.
They were given a helping hand by Sierralta's decision to wrestle Vestergaard to the ground from a corner right in front of referee Mike Dean, but once Tielemans stroked home the penalty, they hardly looked back as Ademola Lookman's classy reverse ball put Maddison in to clip home City's second.
James Maddison's goal against Watford was his seventh in his last 10 games
Watford, themselves without injured top scorer Emmanuel Dennis and Afcon quartet Imran Louza, Ismaila Sarr, Adam Masina and William Troost-Ekong, briefly threatened to make a game of it when Cucho Hernandez and Ashley Fletcher teed up Pedro to fire beyond Danny Ward.
The visitors were also aggrieved when Dean chose not to brandish a second yellow card to Vontae Daley-Campbell - making only his third Foxes start - when, already on a booking, the 20-year-old clumsily brought down Hernandez.
But the poor form continued for the Hornets - who have lost six straight Premier League games, as well as seven successive visits to Leicester - when Barnes coolly tucked home Lookman's cross and the video assistant referee awarded the goal after the linesman had mistakenly flagged for offside.
Watford could have had a second but for Vestergaard flinging himself to block Pedro's shot on to the underside of the bar and Albrighton then added Leicester's fourth after Bachmann parried from Lookman.
That fourth summed up another disappointing return to the King Power for Claudio Ranieri, whose side also lost there 4-2 in the league in November.
Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers told BBC Sport: "I was absolutely thrilled with the performance - we only had eight senior players fit and they all played, and we had 10 academy products in our squad.
"To see them come in and perform against another Premier League club, with that understanding of the game, and what they gave the game, I was absolutely thrilled for them.
"We all want to dream. We dreamt last year and won the trophy. With so many players out, to produce that performance and scoreline, makes me very proud and we're in the hat which is the most important thing."
Watford head coach Claudio Ranieri told BBC Sport: "We knew we had to play against the last winners of the FA Cup. I put some players in and gave a rest to some other players - it was the first time some of them had played together.
"It was a good match at 2-1 but after that Leicester had more quality. But I can't say anything against my players - they made the maximum effort and well done to Leicester.
"We created something good but in the end the quality of the Leicester players told - they scored the goals and we didn't."
Watch five third-round ties live across the BBC including Manchester United v Aston Villa - plus highlights from every match (UK only). Read the full details here.
