Wesley Fofana’s fairytale return sent the fight against Leicester into the Europa Conference League quarter-finals. The defender – out for seven months with a broken leg – shot to dump Rennes, despite the Foxes losing 2-1 in France.
Brendan Rodgers’ team won the last eight 3-2 overall after Flavien Tait won it for Rennes on Thursday. Fofana canceled Benjamin Bourigeaud’s early opening and Leicester owed Kasper Schmeichel’s savings to deny Serhou Guirassy as they survived Rennes’ desperate late charge.
With his side leading 2-0 from last week’s first leg, Rodgers was aware that the expected early attack must come out after beating Rennes twice in the first 15 minutes of Sunday’s 4-2 win at Lyon. . However, the fox could not stand the visitors and it was Bourigeaud – who also shot the start of Rennes in Lyon – who did the damage after eight minutes.
Martin Terrier was given a chance to change things around. James Justin was given a chance to change things around. The Foxes lost Marc Albrighton to injury as a difficult start deteriorated and they blew a good opening on the level after 16 minutes in the night. Harvey Barnes found his way to the area, but his weak effort was saved by Dogan Alemdar and Kelechi Iheanacho was unable to convert into a rebound.
It was a frenetic opening, but the Foxes eventually settled down with the returning Fofana, who suffered a horrific broken leg against Villarreal in August, impressed in defense. Rennes, fourth in Ligue 1 and after the Champions League, had enough Bess to threaten the visitors but could not build on their early advantage.
It allowed the fox to come out of the second half with renewed purpose and it only took them six minutes to equalize. They still had time for Daniel Amartey to miss a brilliant chance when he planted an unmarked header too close to Alemdar, Rennes’ third choice, who followed. But from the resulting corner, Leicester restored their two-goal aggregate advantage when Fofana watched the delivery of Ademola Lookman.
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He celebrated by embracing Chief Rodgers before being bullied by the bank and the squad, 225 days after his horror injury. Leicester’s injury list has grown with Wilfred Ndidi limping to be replaced by James Maddison, following a courageous attack on Gaëtan Laborde, but it did not break their determination.
Rennes needed two goals to send the game into extra time and they survived with 17 minutes left when Iheanacho’s header was ruled out for offside. The visitors then made the most of the recovery as Tait gave them the lead two minutes later in the night. Adrien Truffert jumped between Justin and Lookman to cross for Guirassy and he pushed the tait up as a substitute to curl into the bottom corner of 15 yards. It triggered an attack by the gentlemen and only the flattering save of Guirassy by five minutes sealed Leicester’s progress.
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