Leicester City ended Birmingham City's unbeaten start to the Championship season as they closed out a well-earned victory at the King Power Stadium.

The Foxes took just eight minutes to take the lead when Abdul Fatawu confidently struck past Blues goalkeeper Ryan Allsop.

The visitors almost pulled themselves back in impressive fashion after the break, but Kyogo Furuhashi's volley sailed over the crossbar after Leicester failed to clear a corner.

But Ricardo Pereira wrapped up three points for Leicester in the closing stages as he guided home Jeremy Monga's pinpoint cross.

Birmingham came into the game with seven points from nine on their return to the Championship, but chased the game for much of the first half.

Leicester boss Marti Cifuentes left out Bilal El Khannouss for the second game in a row, with the Morocco international watching from the stands as speculation grows over his possible exit before Monday's transfer deadline.

The hosts wasted no time in asserting themselves as they prospered from Ethan Laird and Paik Seung-ho failing to pick up the ball deep in the Birmingham half before it fell to Louis Page who set up Fatawu for a left-footed strike to open the scoring.

Birmingham could have sealed a point when Laird fired a shot from close range with just over 10 minutes left on the clock, but he was denied by an impressive last-ditch save from Foxes keeper Jakub Stolarczyk.

Despite Pereira getting on the scoresheet with two minutes left, it was 16-year-old Leicester substitute Monga who stole the show with his sumptuous ball teeing up the full-back to score right in front of goal.

Earlier in the second half, Pereira had been yellow carded rather than shown red for a strong tackle on Furuhashi, with the Japan international limping from the field as he was substituted shortly after.

It was a second defeat in a row in all competitions for Birmingham after they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup in midweek by League One side Port Vale.

For Leicester, however, they have now won four home league games in a row for the first time since April 2024, and move up to third in the Championship, with Blues dropping to seventh.

Leicester City boss Marti Cifuentes told BBC Radio Leicester:

"I'm happy because it's never easy to win football games and at the same time we played against a good team that never made things easy for us.

"Overall, from the performance there are a lot of things we can improve but the main thing for me is about building culture and identity. I see that the players care, and they are showing desire and commitment and the spirit we want to have as a foundation which is very positive.

"I'm happy for the young guys and the way the experienced guys are helping. I'm happy to see the commitment from the guys from the academy who were on the bench today. That is definitely a solid foundation."

Birmingham City boss Chris Davies told BBC Radio WM:

"I was really disappointed to lose that match. I think we conceded a poor goal to start the game, which is unlike us, but we recovered really well.

"Obviously, they've gone up the other end in the last moments and got a goal from the very little they had around our box.

"The players are very disappointed because they felt they deserved a lot more than what they got out of that game.

"What we've seen tonight is that we've got the ball into good areas, but we've got to make them defend a little better. More crosses, more box action."

Both sides are out of action next weekend due to the September international break.

Leicester pick up where they left off in the Championship on Saturday, 13 September as they travel to Oxford United (12:30 BST), while Birmingham make the trip to Stoke City later that day (15:00 BST).