David McGoldrick’s second-minute goal is the difference between Town and Leicester at the break.
Mick McCarthy returned to his tried and tested 4-4-2 formation with Tommy Smith and Paul Anderson back in the side with Luke Hyam and Carlos Edwards dropping to the bench. Tyrone Mings was making his home debut.
Blues keeper Dean Gerken needed treatment after being caught on the head early on and after he had recovered, Town went ahead via the game’s first shot.
McGoldrick found himself to shoot five yards outside the penalty area to the right and hit a low strike which beat Kasper Schmeichel to his left. While the Town striker celebrated his seventh goal of the season, the keeper will have been thinking he ought to have done much better.
Blues nemesis David Nugent shot across the face of goal almost immediately, then McGoldrick seized on a poor Paul Konchesky backpass but Schmeichel was alive to it and blocked his shot. Soon after, Foxes right-back Liam Moore headed a Danny Drinkwater corner into Gerken’s arms.
It had been a lively first 15 minutes with Leicester increasingly having most of the ball but with Town looking more dangerous in the final third.
However, on 17 Lloyd Dyer sent a dangerous ball across from the Leicester left after a Jamie Vardy shot had deflected to him, but ahead of any of his team-mates. A minute later, Daryl Murphy sent over a deep ball from the Town left and Luke Chambers shot over.
Home debutant Mings had a chance in the 21st minute when he broke forward having won the ball from Moore in his own half. A Murphy cross deflected to the left-back but the ball got caught under his feet and ricocheted through to Schmeichel.
Gerken tipped over Andy King’s header from Drinkwater’s right-wing corner in the 41st minute before the Blues broke dangerously, Murphy having the ball stabbed away from him just as he looked to shoot, then Anderson having a low cross cut out having taken the ball into the area on the right.
On 43, Skuse played a freekick to McGoldrick on the edge of the Leicester box but the Blues’ top scorer’s shot looped into the Sir Alf Ramsey Stand.
Vardy will feel he should have done better moments before the end of scheduled time when he smashed Dyer’s left-wing cross well wide.
A minute later, referee Oliver Langford blew his whistle to end a battling first half display from the Blues.
After Town grabbed the early goal through McGoldrick, the visitors had most of the ball but with Gerken only rarely tested. When the Blues did get forward they had looked more dangerous and had created most of the game’s better chances.
Town: Gerken, Chambers (c), Berra, Smith, Mings, Anderson, Skuse, Tunnicliffe, Tabb, Murphy, McGoldrick. Unused: Loach, Edwards, Hyam, Wordsworth, Hunt, Nouble, Taylor.
Leicester City: Schmeichel, Moore, Konchesky, Morgan (c), Wasilewski, Hammond, Drinkwater, King, Dyer, Nugent, Vardy. Unused: Logan, James, Schlupp, Bakayogo, Taylor-Fletcher, Miquel, Wood. Referee: Oliver Langford (West Midlands). Att: