The Fosse Way

Yet again a match is over at half time. Yet again a manager is angry, disappointed and embarrassed. The talk is of low confidence. Of naïve game management.

There’s the standard promise to do better next time out. And a plea for patience. We’ve heard it so many times before.

Leicester’s recent history is littered with these no-show performances. Matches which go beyond mere defeat through to complete capitulation.

In March Kasper Schmeichel likened the Premier League winning team to a “pub team.”

And yet the highly paid athletes who represent LCFC today sometimes play like a collection of hangovers and dodgy hamstrings, cajoled out of their lie-ins because there’s no sign of the wayward striker and he isn’t answering his phone.

Four long years of hurt

At Christmas 2021, City sat in a comfortable 9th place in the Premier League table. On Boxing Day we lost 6-3 to Manchester City. No surprise there. This was Peak Pep, Peak Kevin de Bruyne, a team on their way to four successive Premier League titles.

But after just 25 minutes we were 4-0 down! An historic double figure annihilation seemed an embarrassing possibility.

Thankfully, the Champions eased off and the game was written up as a nine goal Christmas thriller – a supreme footballing team performance by one world class team – a plucky underdog comeback by the other.

A mere four weeks later, at home, leading Spurs 2-1 after 94 minutes, we somehow managed to lose 3-2.

And just three weeks after that, we took the “defence” of our FA Cup trophy to our fierce local rivals in Nottingham. And were 3-0 down after 32 minutes.

Two humiliations and a near humiliation, in the space of seven weeks. As many of us said at the time, the kind of performances that get you relegated.

If only it ended there. Coaches often say that lessons are learned in the face of such adversity. In which case the LCFC squad should be among the best educated there is.

The following season, back-to-back, we surrendered 5-2 to Brighton then 6-2 to Spurs.

Another Boxing Day no-show saw us losing 2-0 at home to Newcastle on 7 minutes, 3-0 on 32. Happy Christmas! What a way to celebrate the return of Premier League football after the 2022 Qatar World Cup.

As Spring arrived we were 3-0 down to Man City after 25 minutes and 3-0 behind to Fulham by half time – one of those “winnable” games which proved anything but and led inevitably, to relegation.

That calamity brought us Enzo Maresca who largely ended the humiliation tendency. Ahead at Leeds and Coventry, we dropped six points, both times conceding three in the last 15 minutes. inconvenient rather than full-on embarrassing.

But back in the Premier League, the pub team returned. By and large, Steve Cooper managed to keep us in games until after half time. But after him, we contrived to be three goals behind at the break to Brentford (twice), Wolves, Everton and Newcastle.

And now we have Southampton, Sheffield United, QPR.

These abject defeats span several managers and several squads. They speak of players completely unprepared to face the challenges before them. But is it unprepared as in inadequately readied, coached, briefed? Or unprepared as in unwilling? Or both?

Back to school

The term “schoolboy error” is a cliché, but these defeats really do defy the tactical and strategic learning of any young footballer. Keep it tight until the game “settles down.” Be sure to stay in the match. Basic instructions issued by the primary school coach.

Every team I’ve ever played for would instinctively deploy these childhood learnings if we conceded early. Note how the goal was scored – do something to eliminate that danger. Double down on marking, defensive concentration. Everyone.

The whole team effort would be to stop a newly energised opponent scoring more and taking the game out of our reach.

No-one who has dedicated their whole life to becoming a professional footballer has any excuse for not knowing this or for not putting it into practice when required. But it isn’t the only footballing basic that our players have been unable to implement over the past four years.

At various times we’ve been the team utterly unable to stop opponents scoring from set-pieces. The team criminally vulnerable to the counter. A team that concedes late. Or around half time. (just before, or just after, take your pick).

There’s the woeful failure to block crosses, the inability to score at home, or barely register a shot on target. And there are the comically amateurish “attacking” set pieces from a group that apparently refused to stay behind to practice them last season.

Many of the problems persist. Recently Bristol City scored with their first attack of the second half, changing the whole balance of the game. They equalized seven minutes before time.

It’s as though any subtle tactical/strategic adjustment which might give us an advantage or allow us to exploit an advantage we already have, is considered beneath our dignity. A diversion from trying to play like Manchester City.

And so we surrender to teams with less talent and fewer pretensions.

Whose round is it?

“We always joked we were the best pub team in the world,” that’s Kasper Schmeichel talking about the dressing room culture of Leicester’s Premier League winning team.

When he appeared on the Stick To Football podcast in March Jamie Carragher observed that successful teams enjoy a drink together when they win a game.

Kasper responded: “You said everyone goes for a drink. We’d still do that when we lost….. It was the sense that we’d been brought together and we had this really, really good group of players who everyone had a point to prove….’

“But then we also had an owner who was so different to anything I’ve ever experienced and probably ever will experience, but just did things right. But he was the catalyst for all of this. Win or lose, we were having a good time……

“He’d take us out for dinners and he’d organize these things. He’d make sure that regardless if we win or lost, that we’d still finish the evening properly. Happily, and together.”

The mid-season Fancy Dress Party in Copenhagen and Ranieri’s “Free Pizza for a Clean Sheet” incentive scheme, both spoke of a cheerfully self-deprecating, amateurish culture. Then it was part of the joy, poking fun at the increasingly joyless approach to footballing methods.

Of course, Kasper is talking about Vichai and we now have Top. He’s talking about an era when cash was plentiful and when rich club owners could solve any problem by throwing money at it.

Today requires nimble and shrewd management which an experienced, respected, successful businessman like Vichai might have provided. Nothing on Top’s CV suggests he can.

Dinners and drinks together are fine when the club is truly united and everyone has a point to prove. “Win or lose, we’re having a good time” is a terrible mantra when you’re losing a lot and when most people are experiencing an economic squeeze.

I don’t want to take Kasper’s comments out of context. He was speaking in a relaxed environment with footballing friends he knows well. As such, questions weren’t framed to forensically nail down the trophy winning culture at King Power.

He did say Vichai was generous to players so long as they tried their best.

But having heard the pub team analogy it’s hard to resist the temptation to revisit some of the lowlights of the past four years and wonder whether that same culture persists now.

Ayoze Perez’s lockdown party? Maddison’s “We’ll be Fine” Tweet? Hamza’s drink driving? Vestergaard’s doggy daycare? Aperol ‘Arry’s childcare arrangements? Or his enjoying a drink as we get relegated? Copenhagen Part 2 and “Enzo We Miss You”?

Not turning up for games in any professional sense? Playing one half but not the other? Being useless at set pieces? Failing to stop crosses? Conceding before half of us are in our seats? Anonymously criticising the manager? Anonymously criticising the next manager and the one after that?

Letting the world know that you want a move but staying put until you get a more lucrative offer.

That all sounds “win or lose, we’re having a good time” to me. Which is why this particular party has to be over. For good.