It’s a tremendous noise that cascades down from the upper reaches of the second tier of the Leppings Lane end. You’d have to describe it as booing, but that feels like a comedic word, bringing to mind Punch and Judy on the seafront or wicked witches during panto season.
It isn’t really a time for comedy though, with this miserable Leicester City season on the line. The noise that flows down towards the pitch is one of sheer negativity.
It’s far louder than the boos that greeted Sheffield Wednesday’s second minute goal. And it’s all directed at one of our own players.
This is the effect Jordan Ayew has on Leicester City supporters. The mere sight of Ayew being called back to the bench from a leisurely warm-up rouses fury enough. By the time he’s trotting onto the pitch, the noise is almost deafening.
Does he deserve it? There’s certainly a perceived lack of effort which is completely at odds with the cult hero status Ayew enjoyed at Crystal Palace. It sounded like we would be picking up a limited player who wore his heart on his sleeve, someone who would endear himself to the crowd in spite of obvious limitations.
There have been glimpses of that, but the story for the majority of his spell as a Leicester player has been very different. He’s looked like an out-of-shape veteran going through the motions, a player who physically and emotionally symbolises this broken football club.
Perhaps a handful of those jeering his introduction are the parents of the children he ignored on the way into the stadium. The video revealing that snub goes micro-viral after the game, a damning one but also not surprising given the total disconnect between players, particularly this one, and supporters.
It begs the question: have some Leicester fans given up entirely on the concept of motivating the players and sticking with them in difficult periods? That’s not to blame the supporters for what has happened, merely to suggest it’s counterproductive to leap on their every mistake when our focus should be on the bigger picture. This remains a mess only these players can get us out of now.
In that respect, it could be argued that booing Ayew worked. Perhaps it gave him a point to prove. Who knows how footballers’ brains work?
Even so, any Leicester fan reserving their most vociferous anger for Jordan Ayew is letting the real villains off the hook. It’s facile to target the players. Although they deserve a share of the blame, they’re merely parts of a squad constructed by people who should be on the end of the vocal criticism.
There’s a sense that a lot of fans are either uncomfortable with singling out Aiyawatt Srivaddhanaprabha for criticism, not invested enough to see Jon Rudkin’s role in all this or have given up on the idea of change. The easy way out is to pile it all on those wearing the shirt instead.
Practically all of these players have been known to flourish elsewhere. Examine Wout Faes at Monaco, James Justin at Leeds and even Jordan Ayew before he arrived at Leicester. Back then, Ayew was a utility attacker who played mainly on the wing for Crystal Palace. He was surrounded by youthful energy and enthusiasm, and he was free to add a bit of knowhow to an already functioning operation.
As we saw at Hillsborough, his technique isn’t terrible. He has been a Premier League player for a number of years. Goals against Ipswich, Tranmere and Oxford have shown technical and ball-striking ability far more advanced than our other striker’s capabilities.
But he simply isn’t a striker. In the absence of anyone else, successive managers have picked Ayew to play up front and fans have had to endure him alternating between his two modes: trundling and collapsing.
Even that might have been enough this season were it not for the rest of the squad playing 10 per cent below their natural level. Where Palace had Zaha or Eze or Olise buzzing around constantly, Leicester have Stephy Mavididi tip-toeing his way through games in slow motion.
More than anything else, Leicester’s increasingly lazy and complacent transfer policy has threatened to kill the entire club. Ayew is the embodiment of the hierarchy’s failure to recognise the importance of resale value in the little money invested in the squad in recent years.
Here’s a quiz question. Who is Leicester City’s top scorer over the past two seasons? It’s Jordan Ayew with 11 goals, his strike at Hillsborough taking him one clear of Jordan James and two clear of Abdul Fatawu and Jamie Vardy.
Leicester’s greatest ever player, the boyhood Sheffield Wednesday fan whose name was sung on Monday to ironic smiles of appreciation from the home end, is a part of the Jordan Ayew story it’s impossible to ignore. His was the number nine shirt Ayew inherited. It was his leadership, exuberance, goalscoring and icon status that Leicester knew for so long they somehow needed to replace. And look what we have now.
Ayew may not be Jamie Vardy but he is the only Leicester player to have scored more than two goals in each of the past two seasons. The next highest scorers after Ayew to have scored at least once in both seasons are Stephy Mavididi, Bobby Decordova-Reid and Patson Daka, all on a total of six.
That doesn’t make him good. It does make it bizarre that there aren’t widespread protests at what this club has become from a position of strength.
He proved a useful substitute to bring on while trailing at Hillsborough but he’s been a terrible one to bring on in various other situations. Most notably, Leicester were 3-2 up at home to Southampton when Ayew was introduced in the 84th minute.
We all know what happened next. Although the game was seemingly headed in one direction anyway, the concept that his experience is useful in a scenario like that has led several managers in a row to drop important points.
Back at Hillsborough, fifteen minutes have passed. With Sheffield Wednesday camped in their own penalty area, Ayew has had little need to run and has, improbably, come into his own, free to link play and shoot on sight. He runs onto a headed Daka flick and nods the ball cleverly away from his marker’s path before unleashing it into the bottom corner.
It was always going to take something special to beat Pierce Charles today and here it is, delivered by the biggest pariah of all. In the goal: the ball. Behind the goal: wild celebrations from an away end desperate to believe Leicester can still haul themselves clear of the relegation zone. And then, with a real tone of defiance, it begins: Jordan Ayew, ole ole, Jordan Ayew ole ole…
This is the way with Leicester City and with football in general. Just when you’re absolutely certain of something, the opposite happens. That’s the sole hope we have now, that what looks like an inevitable relegation somehow doesn’t transpire. It would be very Leicester for Jordan Ayew to play a further part in the salvation of this sorry saga.
The Fosse Way 