In the four matches following Leicester’s opening day win over ten-man Sheffield Wednesday, to say performances have been patchy would be an understatement.
Even that opening day presented slightly unforeseen challenges until Wednesday’s undercooked players eventually tired. Then a cup exit at Huddersfield and a chastening league defeat at Preston left fans seething at a perceived lack of effort from handsomely-paid players.
Effort arrived in the next two – both victories to nil – the 1-0 win at Charlton characterised by bodies thrown in the way of opposition shots, while the 2-0 home victory over Birmingham was more about relentless running, pressing and tackling.
The crowd responded not just to the three points on both occasions but the commitment to the cause at a time when various players seemed to be angling for a move away.
To climb to fourth in the table, Leicester have largely been reliant on moments of quality – holding a Goal of the Season competition in the first few weeks while failing to create good chances from open play. Goals can come from any source but Abdul Fatawu won’t rip the ball into the net every week. It took until the 88th minute of the fourth game of the season for Leicester to score a league goal from open play which involved one player creating a good chance for another.
It’s not that opportunities have been missed. They’re not being created. Leicester have mustered an xG total of just 2.84 over the past four games in all competitions while conceding 6.26. The goal totals are an almost mirror image, Fatawu’s brilliance and a stellar Jakub Stolarczyk performance at The Valley contributing to a 6-4 tally in Leicester’s favour.
This is not sustainable for a team chasing promotion. We’ve seen some wonderful moments and we’ve seen bodies on the line in search of three points. All of that has been great to watch. But now we need to see a performance.
The balance of the side has been all wrong so far. Fatawu’s goals have minimised the team’s inability to make chances. One of the standout stats from the Championship title-winning season in 2023/24 was Fatawu’s remarkable creativity, the Ghanaian fashioning 30 big chances – 10 more than any other player in the division.
Expected assists is a good measure of creativity, with Fatawu registering 0.35 xA per 90 in that campaign regardless of whether Patson Daka spooned the resulting chance over the bar or not. That figure dropped to a still respectable 0.22 in the Premier League. It stands at just 0.08 after the opening four league games of this season.
Clearly, Fatawu is being doubled, and sometimes trebled, up on by anxious opponents. That’s having an effect on his ability to create consistently. But so are the players around him, with Jordan Ayew immobile, Louis Page inexperienced and Hamza Choudhury not a comfortable overlapping full-back. All three have roles to play, but perhaps not in their current positions for as long as they’ve been fielded so far.
The xA numbers have been even more stark for Stephy Mavididi on the other side – 0.22 in the Championship-winning season, 0.18 in the Premier League and absolute zero so far in his three Championship outings. His number of key passes per 90 have dropped from 1.80 to 1.23 to 0.45.
Of course, three games – in Mavididi’s case, having missed the Charlton trip – is not a big enough sample size to draw huge conclusions. But the numbers so far do support the eye test as Leicester fans see plenty of room for improvement.
The three signings Leicester made on deadline day will all be expected to contribute to the goal threat on an individual basis, especially with Jordan James having scored eight times in his previous Championship season with Birmingham and Aaron Ramsey managing five in eleven games for Middlesbrough.
There’s also a quality that stats can’t capture, a reassuring feeling of the right fit for player and club, which the signing of James in particular provoked in many Leicester supporters. It felt like a throwback to the days of Nigel Pearson, or even Brian Little and Martin O’Neill: a young and hungry player renowned for giving his all picked up for relatively little cost in a key position that needed strengthening.
Where each of those teams had a lovely balance to them, the current side looks like it’s waiting to emerge. It hasn’t got a personality yet, beginning afresh after the departures of vocal dressing room characters both revered and reviled in the shape of Jamie Vardy and Conor Coady.
Tactically, fans trust Martí Cifuentes to find that balance but fans can also be impatient and so far, the midfield and attack just haven’t looked right.
Perhaps some of that can be traced back to the discomfort shown by the likes of Stolarczyk, Choudhury and Caleb Okoli when playing out from defence. Perhaps it’s also a lack of control being exercised by Boubakary Soumare and Oliver Skipp, who have been reactive rather than proactive so far. Perhaps it’s partly that Jordan Ayew doesn’t look like a centre-forward in the slightest.
It’s probably a little of all of these things and many more – a new coach, a new league with new expectations, uncertainty over the makeup of the squad while the transfer window remained open. Then there’s the slow start Mavididi has made, coupled with the fact Fatawu’s return from long-term injury still has to be balanced with his obvious importance to the team.
Leicester do have one trump card not so much hidden up their sleeve as face up on the table: the player who created that one clear converted chance from open play, the outrageously talented Jeremy Monga. But we shouldn’t be factoring 16-year-olds into solutions needed for underwhelming performances.
Not just yet anyway. There’s still a duty of care to a child and a moral responsibility to ensure Monga gets every chance to fulfil his enormous potential. As brilliant as he is, his current contributions should be seen as a bonus given the pedigree of the other creative players in the squad.
If James suits the requirement and Monga is the ace in waiting then the additions of Ramsey and Carranza feel more like wild cards. In Ramsey’s case, that’s due to past injuries. In Carranza’s, it’s because nobody is quite sure how to benchmark a player arriving to Championship football having done well in MLS but then fallen short in the Eredivisie.
For both, this must seem a fresh start and Leicester a potential new long-term home even if both arrive initially on loan. A fully fit Ramsey might be a perfect fit for the support striker role. Carranza’s work ethic will endear him to fans and he looks to have more aerial ability than either of the pre-existing options at centre-forward.
This is the sweet spot of the season, when signings have been secured and nobody has had a chance to let us down yet. All we have is a glimmer of hope that with the squad now settled, the recent arrivals will complete the jigsaw and raise performance levels.
Their new team-mates have given them a strong, if fortunate, platform from which to build. Let’s seize this opportunity to be hopeful of brighter things for Leicester City.
The Fosse Way 