Clear blue skies as far as the eye could see, sunshine beating down, a pleasant road trip with friends and having been spoiled for excellent food and drink choice at the Cutlery Works. Four Leicester fans, one Sheffield Wednesday fan, none of the five expecting a win. It was almost a perfect Bank Holiday until we made the walk to Hillsborough and the clock hit 3.01pm.
The opening day of the season feels like a lifetime ago, where fans came together in solidarity over Wednesday’s ownership, their own situation finally looks to be improving. It’ll be a long road back but at least they’ll be free of Chansiri and with their fate sealed almost before kick-off, they’ve had an entire season to start thinking about life in League One.
For us? On the 10th August, we had a whole heaping of optimism for the season ahead. A new manager, still holding onto some of the better players in the squad and wondering if we’d actually add anybody to it. That manager is no longer here, the squad looks tired and flimsy and while we added some (loanee) players to it, we’re not really reaping the benefits with arguably the best two out injured in Aaron Ramsey and Jordan James.
In that encounter, Wednesday defied the pundits, and most fans, by coming out of the blocks and attacking Leicester from kick-off, looking the better team and taking an early lead. Despite having gone unpaid, despite the uncertainty and despite losing squad members. Since that day, they’ve gone on to lose further key players, Barry Bannan who saw red at the King Power, and the likes of Yan Valery.
The omens were already there from a Leicester perspective, we just didn’t fully understand quite how bad it was going to get. A larger Leicester away end saw 3000 of us fill the upper and lower tiers at Hillsborough. Gary Rowett opted to keep the side that started on Good Friday, where his predecessor couldn’t or wouldn’t play the likes of Ricardo Pereira twice in a week. Patson Daka recovered from a knock or just sheer exhaustion after his one man effort against Preston. There was still no return to the bench for James.
For the home side, their lineup looked improved, benefiting from a couple of key names returning from injury. Pierce Charles in goal and Nathaniel Chalobah, who scored in our last meeting.
Charles was much the hero of that match too, denying us 11 times before we eventually got the win and would have been out of the door in January were it not for his injury. While he doesn’t appear to marry up to Wikipedia’s alleged height of 6 ft 1, his size doesn’t appear to be a problem for him shutting Leicester out.
There’d been tentative checking of the Portsmouth v Oxford score, and confirmations of that ending in a draw felt like the best possible outcome for us. The task was clear, Leicester just needed to win. The more cynical among us would note that the task was equally clear against Preston and we found a way to sabotage ourselves.
If hope is something in short supply among Leicester fans, you can’t blame us, no sooner had we watched the side kick the match off then Sheffield Wednesday had a corner after getting straight in Jakub Stolarczyk’s face. It was a well placed corner, not dealt with despite the three players surrounding Chalobah, who just nodded it further into the box where Jerry Yates merely had to tap it in.
The age old start to a game for Foxes fans. Lots of Leicester bodies, not a single player taking the onus to yell, organise or lead. Just lots of faces staring at each other, suggesting blame. If a side could be relegated on body language, we’d already be gone. Collectively, it looked terrible and every single player who was in there marking needed to have a look at themselves but it’s hard to ignore Stolarczyk’s positioning and reactions as well.
Leicester players look stunned and fans were bemused, resorting to joining in with ‘we’re going down with the Wednesday’ and rolling out chants for former players, seriously (for Wes Morgan Leo Ulloa) and mockingly (for Danny Ward, we hope). Why? Probably because Wednesday hadn’t won a home game yet this season and were without a win at all in their last 35. Yet here they were, deservedly 1-0 up and pushing for more. If you don’t laugh, or mock yourselves, you’ll cry.
The home side were unlucky not to have doubled their lead via Liam Palmer, but we had had our own chances too and entirely squandered them, setting a theme for the day. The best fell to Oliver Skipp after a Daka cutback, on the volley, the shot denied by Charles. The ‘keeper made a superb stop that had the entire stadium impressed, but if you’re Skipp, you have to be scoring it.
In the lower tier behind me was a Rotherham fan, with a Leicester friend, who needed just minutes to diagnose our two big issues and couldn’t quite believe just how bad we were. While slightly irritating, he was rightly questioning why players he deemed good enough (or more) for this level looked so subpar. The two things he was quick to point out?
One, the lack of a real striker, he unfortunately hadn’t seen the one man Daka show earlier in the weekend and was treated to the much more regular showing where the Zambian made everything look unnecessarily difficult and opted for poor choices every time. The second, a lack of desire from our players in comparison to Wednesday’s. For a side who could be ‘on the beach’ to coin the cliche, they were giving it their all.
This was the unforgivable part when reflecting on the match as a whole, that for the most part we were second best for hunger, desire and getting to the ball. A team not plagued with their other issues, and with more quality, would have finished us off within that first half.
If ever there was a game crying out for a substitute or two at half-time, it was this. We’re at the stage of the season where it’s a case of why not? In this respect, Rowett is no different to Cifuentes or those before him. The game was crying out for somebody to take on a full back, the likes of Jeremy Monga, or even for an injection of chaos by putting Jannik Vestergaard up front.
The first team to pull the trigger on changes was the home side, still 1-0, already reverting to time wasting mood and you couldn’t blame them either. Both sets of players looked fatigued essentially by half time. But still, no real movement on the Leicester bench. It seemed to only kick in when Jamaal Lascelles went over, possibly to remind Rowett that he can’t play 90 minutes and was beginning to feel it, or possibly to suggest some changes in general might help out. It’s the hint of leadership you’d hope we were getting by signing him.
The triple header change finally came in the 69th minute, Jordan Ayew, Bobby De Cordova-Reid and Jannik Vestergaard replacing Skipp, Lascelles and Mukasa. Ayew received the usual cool reception from a majority and it was disappointing to see Vestergaard making more of a straight swap into central defence than charging into a third striker role. These are things you can lay at Rowett’s door. The element of desire has plagued this squad longer than any manager and this feels slightly less fair.
There was a sense of immediate impact from the more attacking substitutes. The game lent itself well to Ayew, requiring him to essentially just lurk inside the opposition box and with our other players making the runs and crossing in. Perhaps this is what made his equalising goal look so good, though it was also a really well hit shot. Those who had been his naysayers when he came on still celebrated wildly and some likely joined in with his chant. He at least looked hungry and knew how to hit the ball on target.
He too found himself denied by the Man of the Match display from Charles as well on the wrong side of our luck. He had one hit the post and had another inside the net before the offside flag (for Daka, not him) denied him too. A lot of this was helped by a lively input from De Cordova-Reid.
That we were able to suddenly turn it on properly for the final 28 minutes is the biggest frustration. Where was that performance in the preceding 70 minutes?
Not too long ago this season, our issue was creating chances. We’d go long stretches without having a shot, let alone one on target. We’ve overcome that but encountered a new challenge, we can’t actually finish a chance. We had 24 shots in this game, and had an xG of 2.53. That’s 58 shots in the last 3 games but only 3 goals scored (one of those was a 0-0 too) and no wins.
Rowett has helped this pendulum swing in a way that made the last few minutes feel tense and that perhaps we might just come away with something, but we’re not converting things into meaningful points. He’s steadied some things but can’t fully eradicate others (see stupid goals we concede), but he isn’t the inspirational man we hoped for so far. We’ve got just 1 win in 15 games now. Not exactly saving yourself from relegation form to worry those above us.
How hopeful you feel about survival now will depend on two things, your natural level of hope and optimism for Leicester City, and your faith in an ability to harden up all the soft edges that have cost us in attacking and defending this season. It’s Swansea at home this weekend. The task is simple, we have to win. Our home form will be a major factor in relegation if we find ourselves planning for League One.
The Fosse Way 