The Fosse Way

We have spent so much of the last 12 years on a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, that watching a mediocre, mid-table season unfurl in front of us is a strange experience.

Every game feels like a referendum, before turning out to be much less important than we think. Each week you turn towards the league table for answers and find that yes, we’re still just outside the top six.

More than that, each performance from this Leicester City team confirms whatever prior belief you had about them.

At this point, either you think there’s no point sacking yet another manager and that Marti Cifuentes is doing a reasonable job in the circumstances, or you think he has shown little to suggest he is getting the best out of this team and mid-table is an unacceptable return.

How wonderful then that this trip to Ashton Gate provided 45 minutes of ammunition for the first argument, followed by 45 minutes of support for the second.

At the interval, you could plausibly draw a line from Cifuentes’ half time changes against Sheffield United a fortnight ago to Wednesday evening and argue that Leicester City were fixed. The balance sheet in the 180 minutes since that moment showed seven goals scored to only one conceded. Seven goals is an awful lot for this Leicester team, it had taken them eight games to score as many before this flurry.

Along with the raw numbers, there were positive signs in the performances as well. Bristol City looked like an extension of the mini-comeback against Sheffield United and then the win over Derby. The midfield trio, shorn of Harry Winks and Boubakary Soumare’s ponderous play, was more slick and energetic. They were moving the ball quicker, getting it forward and into wide areas with intent.

Moving the ball faster is one of those things that is so obvious it’s hard to understand why teams struggle so much to do it. The knock-on effect of fast interchanges through midfield and more direct passing from the centre backs into the forward line is that the wingers find themselves in one-on-one situations, as opposed to being endlessly double, or even triple, marked.

Suddenly, Stephy Mavididi looks a far more dangerous player. He is basically good enough to be a real threat to any team if you keep allowing him to isolate defenders and drive inside at them. He’s much less effective if he’s held out wide and forced towards the byline. To maximise his strengths he has to get the ball quickly and often, ideally before the defence has had time to reset into a low block.

Leicester did this well in the first half, particularly for the first 20 minutes of the game. Mavididi was creating chances, fashioning opportunities for himself, and got on the end of a back post cross that he headed off the top of the crossbar. He then did Scott Twine all ends up to win the penalty that Jordan Ayew converted.

Along with the midfielders, Ben Nelson and Ayew himself were key parts of the first half display. The contrast between the air of calm that seems to surround Nelson, and the air of ‘inflatable flapping about in a 100mph hurricane’ that follows Faes around is something to behold. The defence looks more composed with him in it, even if it isn’t actually good.

He also offers glimpses of a quality range of passing, some of which went directly into Ayew and which the latter did an excellent job of coming deep to receive the ball to feet. Ayew is good at this very specific thing and not much else; if you could treat him like a table football player and affix a giant pole through his chest about 40 yards out so he didn’t have to worry about ever going forward into the opposition third, he would be brilliant.

Leicester were largely in control of the first half, though that had slipped away a little in the latter stages. The second goal, when it came, kind of happened out of nowhere and had nothing to do with any of the bits of football that had looked good prior to this. Abdul Fatawu got the ball on the half way line, ran all the way to the edge of the box, did two Bristol City players on the byline and squared for Bobby De Cordova Reid to score (again).

This was a good goal, if a woeful defensive effort from Bristol City. It also summed up the strange season Fatawu is having. He did little else all game, even his trademark wild shot from range was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s frustrated or trying too hard to pull off a magic moment every time, but Leicester need him to be much more involved.

So there we are with the good bits. At half time, the Foxes looked pretty comfortable. Bristol City had moments before the break but they hadn’t looked anything special.

Within a minute of the restart this shimmering dreamworld was shattered by the reality of supporting this team. The hosts came out of the blocks like a cannon, Jannik Vestergaard tried to do too much in blocking a cross and diverted it straight to Mark Sykes, who put it past Jakub Stolarczyk.

Bristol City were excellent in the second half. Their intensity kept Leicester pinned back for more or less the entire rest of the game and they created enough chances to win. Stolarczyk was forced into a lot of saves, which he pulled off to varying degrees of competence.

The Robins amassed 14 shots in the second half alone. Many of these were headers, which are not always as good chances as they seem, but on at least a couple of occasions they rose unchallenged only to put the header straight at the goalkeeper. On another, Sinclair Armstrong headed a header that was probably going in anyway up and onto the woodwork, where it bounced out, ricocheted off someone else and somehow slipped wide.

The question from a Leicester perspective is why and how we failed to respond to this in any way. It’s one thing for the opposition to play well, it’s another thing to be completely unable to react to it. Leicester have two fast wingers, before long they had Patson Daka on as well, and yet there was nothing resembling the threat of a counter attack.

There was also little by way of defensive organisation. It’s perfectly reasonable to defend more when you’re ahead, the issue is that there’s no point doing that if you’re going to give up so many shots and concede loads of goals. You may as well keep trying to attack. Even feeding Ayew to fall over and win free kicks would have been a better strategy than camping back in our own box.

To reiterate, Bristol City played well. But this is Bristol City, 10th in the Championship. Not Arsenal or Manchester City. Not even Southampton or Sheffield United, who are either armed with parachute payments or were one of the best Championship teams not to get promoted last term. It’s implausible to argue that Leicester have to accept being outplayed by anyone and everyone. Aw shucks, what can you do. Rudkin out!

Perhaps the most concerning part of the second half was the way in which Cifuentes tried and failed to impact the game. He is constrained by his bench and if you add 50% of your senior midfielders to the bomb squad then you’re going to lack options. At the same time, after one minute of the second half the game had changed significantly, and his reaction was baffling in the extreme.

On a tactical level, the decision to replace Jordan James with Patson Daka and play De Cordova Reid in midfield after 10 minutes of being completely outplayed is one of the stranger substitutions in the annals of Leicester City history. Rarely can a change ever have been so obviously destined to be a disaster. A few minutes later, Cifuentes had to fix the inevitable gaping hole in central midfield by bringing on Bade Aluko and shifting Hamza Choudhury into the middle.

Once Bristol City had equalised, thanks to an absolutely dreadful defensive effort from everybody concerned, he rushed on Louis Page and the inevitable Silko Thomas for Mavididi and Fatawu. It meant that at 2-2, Leicester’s forward line was comprised of Thomas, Page, Ayew, and Daka. Like sending out Mr. Blobby to storm Helm’s Deep.

There is also a more strategic question, which is why his team cannot escape when they’re under pressure. For as much as there is a lack of quality, such as Daka coming on to immediately lose the ball with his first two touches, any team should be able to create the odd counter attack. Even when Andorra come to Wembley they have a couple of attacks.

Leicester, on the other hand, failed to put the pressure back on Bristol City at all. It became like an attack v defence training game for long stretches of time. The home team put an astonishing 35 crosses into the Leicester box. It took until the last minute for Leicester to register their first shot of the half, and that was Ayew blazing over from 35 yards.

Some late lipstick on the pig, thanks to Silko Thomas forcing a save from range at the death, makes the stats look better but doesn’t change the reality of how passive this team was for so long.

The difficulty in making any definite judgement about the manager and how good Leicester are is that there is always a counter argument. The second half here was one of the worst you’re ever likely to see, but the first half was pretty good. Some variation of that applies to the whole season.

If you peek behind the curtain, though, the underlying numbers remain those of a poor bottom half team. Even the good halves are not that good, and they are being overwhelmed by how bad the bad halves are. This was another game in which Leicester were comfortably beaten according to xG.

Cifuentes is just about keeping his head above water thanks to these occasional strong passages of play – the doomed comeback at Sheffield United, a strong start at Derby, then a good first half here. But for us to believe in the long term potential at all then they need to build on them, rather than reverting to type at the first opportunity.

Maybe this is one step forward, two steps back approach is how things are going to be, at least until the points deduction is confirmed. Leicester are treading water until further notice and that is good enough to hold off any argument that we deserve anything better.

We’re fine, middle-of-the-road. You win some, you lose some, you draw a lot. If you need us, we’ll be a couple of points off the playoffs.