Full Time After Extra Time This is a live match. Extra Time Half Time

Birmingham City vs Leicester City. Sky Bet Championship.

8:00pm, Monday 18th December 2023.

St. Andrew's StadiumAttendance20,334.

Leicester City 3

S Mavididi (10th minute, 50th minute)
K Dewsbury-Hall (21st minute)

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Birmingham City 2-3 Leicester City: Stephy Mavididi double gives Foxes three-point lead at top of Championship

Report and free match highlights from the Sky Bet Championship match between Birmingham City and Leicester City at St Andrew's on Monday | Two goals from Stephy Mavididi and one from Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall help the Foxes re-establish a three-point lead over second-placed Ipswich

Dan Long

Digital football journalist @DanLong__

Tuesday 19 December 2023 09:10, UK

Leicester re-established a three-point lead at the top of the Championship with a 3-2 win over Birmingham on Monday night.

Stephy Mavididi finished off a lightning counter-attack to give the Foxes the lead in spite of a bright start from Wayne Rooney's men at St Andrew's.

A well-crafted move saw Jordan James net a quickfire equaliser, but a Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall strike and another from Mavididi had the visitors 3-1 up and coasting towards victory within the first five minutes of the second half.

From nowhere, James pulled another back with 16 minutes to play, but the goal did not spark the late comeback the hosts desired, despite the introduction of attacking pair Scott Hogan and Lukas Jutkiewicz.

Leicester move onto 55 points as a result of their fourth straight win, three clear of Ipswich and an incredible 13 ahead of third-placed Leeds.

How ruthless Leicester stayed right on track

The fact Ipswich and Leeds were both held at the weekend presented the Foxes with the chance to assert themselves as top dogs once more.

They had to weather an early storm, with Mads Hermansen forced to save from Siriki Dembele and Krystian Bielik - and after the corner that followed the latter, the visitors took the lead. Mavididi finished off the most devastating counter, seconds after James Justin's attempted clearance rattled the framework of his own goal.

Within four minutes, though, Birmingham had the equaliser their exploits deserved, with James receiving a smart ball from Ivan Sunjic and firing across the six-yard box, into the opposite corner.

The pendulum swung again soon after, with the Blues caught by a counter-attack similar to the one they had fallen behind to. Juninho Bacuna lost the ball on the edge of the area and Abdul Fatawu fed the ball to Dewsbury-Hall, who showed electric pace to dart away and find the empty net after drawing John Ruddy from his line.

Dewsbury-Hall and Mavididi then linked up for the latter to extend the lead with 50 minutes on the clock. The latter received a ball swept out to the left-hand side and rifled into the top right corner via a deflection off Emanuel Aiwu.

As Leicester passed up further chances to put the game to bed, Rooney made a triple change in an attempt to inspire a comeback and it had at least some effect, with substitute Koji Miyoshi offering an helping hand to James reducing the deficit after an injection of pace on the right.

He then threw on Hogan and Jutkiewicz to try and force the equaliser, but it just did not follow.