{"id":1190769,"date":"2026-09-07T04:06:40","date_gmt":"2026-09-07T04:06:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1190769\/"},"modified":"2026-09-07T04:06:40","modified_gmt":"2026-09-07T04:06:40","slug":"city-defeat-bristol-rovers-in-extended-pre-season-test","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/1190769\/","title":{"rendered":"City Defeat Bristol Rovers In Extended Pre-Season Test"},"content":{"rendered":"

Split into four 30 minutes, to help as many players as possible get valuable action, 22 of Russell Martin\u2019s squad got an hour in the tank midway through the third week of pre-season.<\/p>\n

Kirsten Otchere\u2019s fourth-minute opener was levelled by Ellis Harrison for the Sky Bet League 2 hosts but Nathan Opoku made sure just after the first hour.<\/p>\n

Martin looks at his squad<\/p>\n

\"Kirsten<\/p>\n

The game\u2019s format was designed with fitness gains in mind, still over three weeks out from the new campaign, but it will also have been a good opportunity for the new Manager to closely inspect many of his players as well.<\/p>\n

Twenty-two in total featured, with the first XI containing the likes of Stephy Mavididi, Hamza Choudhury and Fran Vieites. Academy representation was strong as well, with Jayden Joseph, Tom Wilson-Brown and Will Alves among the youngsters to start.<\/p>\n

Otchere started up top for City and opened the scoring early on, with his deflected drive \u2013 from the edge of the box \u2013 evading former Foxes goalkeeper Brad Young.<\/p>\n

All change<\/p>\n

\"Russell<\/p>\n

Harrison\u2019s equaliser got Steve Evans\u2019 Rovers \u2013 who finished 14th in League 2 last term \u2013 back in it in the 40th minute but Leicester retained an element of control.<\/p>\n

Adorning our 26\/27 adidas Away Kit for the first time in Bristol, we had several chances. Mavididi forced Young into a strong stop at his near post, while Choudhury also tested the \u2018keeper from close range after intricate play from Wilson-Brown.<\/p>\n

With an entirely new XI for the second 60 minutes, Sammy Braybrooke was involved in plenty of what worked for Leicester. His delivery put it on a plate for Opoku, although a commendable save denied him, with Lorenz Hutchinson missing the target too.<\/p>\n

Sealing the win<\/p>\n

\"Nathan<\/p>\n

Opoku was indeed the man to settle the contest but not before a promising opening for Olabade Aluko, who sent a thumping hit straight at the goalkeeper.<\/p>\n

Luke Thomas also fizzed a free-kick narrowly wide of the far post quickly afterwards, but the winning moment landed at Opoku\u2019s feet when Braybrooke\u2019s hit was parried into his path in the 64th minute.<\/p>\n

With valuable minutes in the legs, we do it all over again on Saturday \u2013 with the same format awaiting Martin\u2019s men at Burton Albion on Saturday (1pm BST kick-off).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Split into four 30 minutes, to help as many players as possible get valuable action, 22 of Russell…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1190770,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[8818],"tags":[381,748,2737,28228,393,94,4884,1444,1039,119350,18673,30083,19968,16,15,101500],"class_list":["post-1190769","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-bristol","tag-bristol","tag-britain","tag-city","tag-club","tag-england","tag-football","tag-great-britain","tag-home","tag-homepage","tag-lcfc","tag-leicester","tag-menu","tag-official","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-website"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/117227790394898662","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190769","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1190769"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1190769\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1190770"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1190769"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1190769"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1190769"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}