‘Leicester loss a wake-up call’

Leicester City’s 2-1 defeat to Hull City on the first day of the Premier League season was just a blip, according to Sky Sports pundit Jamie Redknapp.

The Foxes became the first champions since Arsenal in August 1989 to lose the opening match of their title defence after goals either side of half-time from Hull’s Adama Diomande and Robert Snodgrass.

Leicester were without recent new signing Nampalys Mendy – bought to replace midfielder N’Golo Kante after his big-money move to Chelsea – whose wife went into labour overnight.

Meanwhile another summer acquisition, Luis Hernandez, started the game in central defence with Robert Huth still serving the final game of a three-match ban.

Redknapp believes those key changes were partly responsible for the visitors’ surprise defeat to the newly promoted Tigers at the KCOM Stadium on Saturday lunchtime.

“When I watched Leicester last season, what I enjoyed about them was their good relationships all over the pitch,” he said.

“You had Danny Simpson and Wes Morgan, with Morgan playing right-sided centre back for most of last season. Today he [Morgan] had to play on the left to accommodate Hernandez, who struggled a little bit and that upsets that balance.

“Then we had the same in midfield where we had Kante and [Danny] Drinkwater, but today they had Drinkwater and [Andy] King, which is not quite the same.

“Now we cannot …

continue reading in source www.skysports.com