Football: Pleat protests against unfair treatment of Latins
Sheffield Wednesday 1 Leicester City
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Your support makes all the difference.Even as one of his Italians brought Wednesday their first win of the season, David Pleat has already threatened over how Latin temperament will mix with English refereeing.
Benito Carbone's record for the week stands at three goals - including the match-winning penalty at Hillsborough - and a sending-off. But it was the booking of his compatriot, Paolo Di Canio, for dissent that rang alarm bells for the Sheffield Wednesday manager.
"I'm really worried that they are going to get sought out," said Pleat. "I don't think Di Canio did anything dramatic."
Pleat had already referred in his programme notes to the doubling of his Italian contingent as presenting a challenge. He was talking in tactical terms, but the events of the week showed that there is a potential cultural collision as well.
"You can't retaliate," said Pleat. "Really skilful players have got to be protected, but they can't react."
For all his undoubted skill, Di Canio, who was booked for arguing the toss at a throw-in, did little to hasten Wednesday's first win of the season.
Not so Carbone. Although Leicester's Martin O'Neill was sceptical about the penalty award, it sprang from a beguiling flick that fractured the City defence. A virtually Carbone copy of that party trick almost produced a second goal for David Hirst, whose stoical Yorkshire efforts were perhaps more central to Wednesday's success than any qualities imported from the Continent.
The Sheffield side were not quite as badly depleted by injury and illness as was suggested by a team sheet that listed only 10 players, but their task of recovering from their seven-goal nightmare at Blackburn was made far more difficult by being well below full strength.
Hirst, starting his first game of the season, was one of those who rose to the demands of the occasion, gradually establishing himself as the most dangerous player on the field after Leicester had dominated the early stages.
That was the story for City. Their bright start faded into ineffectuality and, after Carbone's penalty raised them to greater urgency, their late cavalry charge could not save their unbeaten record.
"We should have gone for it earlier," said the Leicester manager. "But if you had offered me eight points from our first five games, I would have taken them."
Goal: Carbone (pen 56) 1-0.
Sheffield Wednesday (4-1-3-2): Pressman; Nolan (Briscoe, 62), Walker, Newsome, Nicol; Atherton; Di Canio, Hyde (Collins, 15), Humphreys (Whittingham, 76); Hirst, Carbone. Substitutes not used: Poric, Clarke (gk).
Leicester City (3-5-2): Keller; Prior (Cottee, 80), Elliott, Walsh; Kamark, Savage (Parker, 62), Lennon, Izzet, Guppy; Heskey, Claridge (Fenton, 62). Substitutes not used: Whitlow, Andrews (gk).
Referee: P Alcock (Redhill).
Bookings: Wednesday: Di Canio. Leicester: Walsh, Heskey, Collins.
Man of the match: Hirst.
Attendance: 24,851.
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