Gary Rowett’s second away game in four days saw Leicester grab another point, this time against promotion hopefuls Middlesbrough. The new manager hadn’t even had a full week in charge but it all felt a little different, in a good way.
After a quick turnaround, Rowett may have liked to have had the luxury of making more than just two changes to the starting lineup. One of those was enforced, Luke Thomas restored with Victor Kristiansen seemingly out for the rest of the season. Jeremy Monga dropped to the bench, with Bobby De Cordova-Reid back in following suspension.
The lineup Rowett chose is reflective of effectively our best fit eleven, along with any and all senior defensive players. You could have shuffled the Stephy Mavididi card with his mixed form, but that was about it. This was also one of the first times that we’ve seen Ricardo Pereira play back to back ninety minutes on a Saturday/midweek combination.
For his part, this was a largely good performance and we needed his experience, while he lost out on pace a couple of times to Tommy Conway, he was key to the defensive work the team put in.
Middlesbrough started on the front foot, continuing a theme we’ve grown used to. Given their key tactic is a combination of possession and attacking through the middle, it’s interesting that one of their earliest chances came from breaking down the wing. Conway got the better of Pereira and had us chasing our tails. A tactic they didn’t try often enough to exploit our usual weakness.
The Leicester players defended pretty valiantly to survive the onslaught in the first quarter. Out of possession, it looked like Oliver Skipp was dropping in amongst the back line and he and Harry Winks worked tirelessly to support the defenders and try to disrupt Hayden Hackney and Aidan Morris in central midfield.
When we were able to get the ball though, we looked bright and the players certainly looked motivated. In the early stages of the game this manifested through giving away some free kicks and fouling them, but this and an early goal helped add to a sense of frustration in the stands and from the Boro players.
Leicester took a somewhat surprising lead 18 minutes in, from an unlikely source. We’d managed to get forward a couple of times, De Cordova-Reid used his years of experience to win a foul. Divine Mukasa took the resulting set piece. It was a beautifully curled left-footer that gave Caleb Okoli a simple header to put away.
We’re all falling into a familiar trap, earlier in the season it was praise for another loanee, Jordan James who seemed invaluable and a key cog we’d been missing. We’re still missing him, but Mukasa has taken it upon himself to minimise that loss since he arrived in January. That’s 5 goal contributions from 5 games and his third assist.
Mukasa’s stature and composure belie his eighteen years. He’s got a sparkle to the way he plays and every time we got him onto the ball, like with James before, it felt like it was going to lead to an attack or a chance. He played a big part in the eleven shots we had but also in our general gameplay.
He’s never flustered by having the opposition get up in his face or when hassling him, his passing range is excellent and it seems so natural that in two or three seasons we’ll be watching him do something great on a much bigger stage.
In a half that had a little bit of everything for Caleb Okoli, perhaps the head injury that saw a makeshift bandage almost covering his eye should have been the warning sign. Okoli’s biggest weakness is his passing game and when we needed either a short and simple pass or a long hoof, he opted to try an ambitious ball through the middle to Winks.
This wasn’t Winks’ fault, and he was rightly furious after watching Hackney deploy the recovered ball to Conway, who’d been causing us issues a lot of the half. Conway opted not to shoot, instead pulling it back for Riley McGree to slot into the net. After our defensive resilience, this felt like such an avoidable goal to concede.
It’s a shame that Rowett’s side couldn’t go into half-time with the 1-0 lead. We’ve been victims of our downfall so many times this season, and the goal Middlesbrough scored was a gift. A terrible decision and pass from our goalscorer.
It’s 28 league games and counting now without a clean sheet. Yet, there’s more optimism having watched the way the side saw this out. The rosy way of looking at this is to say that we did succeed in shutting Middlesbrough out in the second half. Rowett’s approach is simpler, it seems to favour the basics.
Make no mistake, this is a game Leicester City of last month and last year would have lost. Possibly spectacularly if Middlesbrough had found their clinical edge and worked us more. They weren’t as physical as other teams we’ve faced which also played into our hands. But everybody knew their roles, both in and out of possession and you’d have to agree that we executed a much better game plan than we’ve seen for a while.
As full 90 minute performances go, Rowett got the best one out of this team since we beat Birmingham at home last year. You could counter that the Ipswich game was good but our opposition were very out of sorts that day and attacked us a lot less than Middlesbrough. There had more of a robust feel to the team, across the pitch almost all performances were good. The work rate was impressive throughout.
Leicester had more chances to hurt Middlesbrough too. While we’ve got goals and assists coming from all over, the striker issue lives on. Patson Daka had the best chance, shortly after the restart. Luke Ayling had been struggling and lost out to Daka. But the striker didn’t take his time, with the goalkeeper off his line, he tried to head it in. The ball went wide and it felt like a huge, missed opportunity.
Substituting Daka for Ayew and De Cordova-Reid for Fatawu were welcome changes in terms of fresh legs. We had a number of players tiring and energy was going to be key in both trying to push for a winner and in trying to not lose entirely.
Ayew may not have been the dream name to see coming on, though at the end he did serve to slow the game, win a couple of free kicks and play the conservative role. However, while Daka frustrates with his finishing, his movement and pace still offer more than Ayew does. There’s obvious tension with his team mates too, both Mukasa and Winks were left berating Ayew following his less than powerful shot late on that felt needlessly wasted.
Fatawu’s introduction served a completely opposite role for Rowett. He was constantly pushing on and attacking, trying to have a shot or set up others. It was interesting to watch how Rowett deployed players and brought substitutes into the second half, given our limitations. Mukasa’s energy had faded, Mavididi’s impact had been limited in the second half so swapping them for Page and Aribo seemed wise.
There can be no doubts over the team’s desire and commitment following this performance. We had Skipp putting his body on the line and throwing himself into it defensively several times, Ben Nelson made a good clearance and he and Luke Thomas had been good for much of the night. Winks, alongside Skipp, put in a real shift in central midfield. The two nullified a lot of Middlesbrough’s usual route to goal. Building on from the positives at Stoke, this was another game with things to give you hope and want to get behind the side.
There were some boos amongst the home contingent at full time. This is a difficult spell for Boro. Losing away to league leaders Coventry is understandable but fans are visibly less patient at being held to two draws by ghosts of Rowett past (Oxford) and present. Facing us at the juncture of restoring confidence and backbone is unfortunate.
Leicester fans who made the trip to the Riverside will feel rewarded for their midweek efforts, and possibly even a little bit proud. Pride is something that’s been visibly lacking of late. While Rowett clearly needs more time, and maybe some more fit bodies, he’s instilled some pride again. So often we’ve seen the body language on field looking disinterested at best and often worse.
This performance felt like watching a team working together and committed to the same goal. There’s still twelve games to go and hopefully the injury pressures will gradually ease. It was mildly concerning hearing Rowett’s very honest assessment afterwards about our defensive options. Thomas apparently struggling a little by the end.
Next up, it’s Norwich at home. While points on the road are commendable, our bid to survive will be judged by what we do with our home games and against the teams around us.
Getting the first win since early January is the vital next step in Rowett turning this team’s belief around. Another committed performance should see the team rewarded. The King Power crowd will need to be supportive, loud and pull together like the team appear to.
The Fosse Way 