The Fosse Way

 

Today football made us feel something again.

So much of this season has been about going through the motions, or about preparing for a game by assuming the worst. There has been no expectation and little more excitement.

These post-relegation encounters have even less going for them. Going through the motions, disinterestedly playing out the string, all hope of some enjoyment evaporated.

But then, on Sunday, we finally ran into a force more powerful than the hope that you yourself might enjoy some success: the prospect of stopping someone you don’t like having success themselves.

These sorts of games can go one of two ways, either the motivated team absolutely obliterates the non-entity with nothing to play for, or the non-entity rouses themselves to play spoiler and ruin everybody’s fun.

When Chris Wood contrived to miss two good chances inside the first three minutes, it looked like we were going to have to look down the former. Eventually, this ramshackle team managed to pull off the latter.

For an hour or so, this was the classic Ruud van Nistelrooy era Leicester City performance. The sort of game you feel like you’re in, but as soon as you try to remember anything resembling a chance or a good move or a touch in the box, you have to confront the reality that the scoreline is a total fluke.

In the final stages, we got a throwback to the other Leicester of this season, the Steve Cooper version of dim and distant memory. The chaotic side who would suddenly start to play out of nowhere and pop in goals of inexplicable competence to pick up points they didn’t really deserve.

There were signs long before then that Notts Forest might be rather on edge for a team facing a historically bad opponent at home. Early on, we were treated to a series of squeals of outrage that would make Goodison Park blush every time Luke Thomas stepped up (and over?) the line to take a long throw.

Those shrieks were silenced when out of nowhere, one of those throws led to the opening goal.

Some of our more picky readers might argue that given the long throws did seem to offer a threat of some description, that we should perhaps have been trying them out before we were relegated, rather than afterwards. Nonetheless, from one of these hurls into the area, Leicester – even greater shock – won the second ball.

It eventually fell to Bilal El Khannouss, whose shot was parried out by Matz Sels, only for Conor Coady to nod in the rebound.

From an attacking perspective, that was your lot for the next hour or so. Van Nistelrooy’s great failure is this, his inability to pick a team that can offer anything going forward. Jordan Ayew, for all his ability to win the odd free kick, is utterly immobile even for a #10, which makes it all the more inexplicable he has started a number of games on the wing.

The Dutchman has singularly failed to realise that his team selections are the major reason why we have gone such long spells without a goal. The goalless run doesn’t even tell the whole story, as the rot is deeper than that. His team can barely ever venture into the opponent’s half, or put any sort of coherent attacking move together.

He has spent so long picking players who offer no energy and no threat. An old, tired team for a manager who supposedly wants to play a high-energy, intensive style of football. Kasey McAteer in the front three has been forced on him by injuries out wide, and he has helped. 

But once again, this would only be properly rectified late on. With Facundo Buonanotte and El Khannouss together, the team looks at least vaguely like a professional outfit. When Jeremy Monga made an appearance, he forced the Forest defenders to worry about someone beating them 1v1. Suddenly there was movement and quality going forward to threaten the opposition back line.

By that point, Leicester had squandered the lead. Chris Sutton had barely finished a soliloquy about how flimsy and weak the Foxes are when they allowed Morgan Gibbs-White to wander over to the near post unmarked and head in a free kick.

They then really should have fallen behind much earlier than they eventually did. Leicester’s defensive organisation is dismal, so any half-decent bit of football leads to a player standing in acres of space in the box.

Late in the first half, Forest exploited this with a couple of cut backs, most dangerously from Neco Williams to Nicolas Dominguez, whose shot was saved by Jakub Stolarcyzk before Wood headed the rebound wide.

Dominguez had the best chance to put them into the lead after the break, choosing to play on expert mode by attempting to diving header a bouncing ball from 10 yards out, instead of just shooting and scoring.

The goal felt inevitable by then and, when it did come, was excellent. Gibbs-White received the ball just inside the Leicester half, looked up to see where James Justin was, and put a pinpoint cross as near to him as possible, with inevitable consequences.

A few minutes afterwards, Buonanotte entered the fray, and the game began to change. 

The Argentinian is not perfect, but he has something to him that is badly lacking in this team. Quality, obviously, but also an edge. He is one of the few players who might randomly rake his studs down your Achilles or put in a snide little challenge after the ball has gone.

Even though he is not going to be at Leicester next season, it’s this sort of profile the club needs to look for. Players who can mix it in a scrap, bad losers who will give you a bit of a kick on the sly.

The truth is, that sometimes football doesn’t make a lot of sense. Starting a little fight can change the flow of the game, it might fire up the crowd or, in this case, it might totally rattle an opponent and make him lose concentration.

After 80 minutes or so, Buonanotte went in late on Ola Aina, got booked, and squared up to him. The two of them were yakking at each other as they wandered back to line up for the free kick. Then suddenly, seconds later, Aina made a mistake, getting dragged out of position so that two defenders converged on Jamie Vardy when Leicester broke up the pitch.

Vardy expertly turned it round the corner to Buonanotte and he was in. From there, he took the goal expertly, dumping Morato on his backside and slotting past Sels in the Forest net.

The final stages descended into a sort of glorious madness. First, Forest made a dreadful mistake in substituting Elliot Anderson rather than the stricken Taiwo Awoniyi in the last minute of the 90, so that they effectively played stoppage time with 10 men.

Then Leicester could have won it three times over. As the match descended into a sort of homage to the 2013 playoff playoff at the City Ground, the Foxes almost treated us to another hilarious winner at that end of the ground.

Monga gave us a glimpse of the sort of thing he’s been doing on the regular in the youth team by standing up his man, cutting inside, and firing just over the bar. A minute later he broke onto the ball in the box and forced a good save from Sels. With the final act of the game, Victor Kristiansen was agonisingly short of nodding in a Buonanotte cross.

Even then the madness wasn’t over. With Forest’s heads in a blender and their Champions League dream in tatters, their completely normal and above board owner, Evangelos Marinakis, marched onto the pitch to shout at the manager.

In normal footballing terms, this game didn’t mean anything to Leicester. The manager and many of these players are on their way out. The point means absolutely nothing. We can’t use this result or this performance to predict anything for the future.

Except that in the end the result did matter. Finally, the away end got to have a good time. Finally, we have a match that we can enjoy and remember rather than immediately eject from our minds in shame.

Stick it to the tricky trees at the water cooler this morning, you’ve earned it.