Two solid weeks of spending the extended international break working on learning the Russell Martin style in greater depths was rewarded last night with a performance and result truly reflective of our glorious leader and this current attempt to pass as a serious football club.
Another week, another contender for the worst result in history.
Leicester City played the hits to perfection. 72% possession. 20 shots. A 2-1 defeat to Stevenage, conceding goals to a player we released on a free in the summer and a set piece.
In one sense, this is a difficult time to be a Leicester City supporter. And in another more real sense, the club are making it very easy at the moment. It’s easy to switch the TV off at half time, as one close friend did last night. It’s easy to forget Leicester are even playing until hours before kickoff, as another did. This is a football club that’s drifting, and once devoted followers are gradually drifting away from it.
Let’s be honest. The extra-long international break has been a joy.
And yet there were 911 away fans at the “SPORTA Arena” last night, chomping at the bit to see our brave boys in the Jersey Mike’s. A fitting number for a club in dire need of rescuing from itself. In the home stands, literally tens of Stevenage fans turned out to see former Premier League title winners Leicester City in the flesh.
We’re not famous any more. And in fact, given Stevenage are above us in the league, you couldn’t count this as a shock result. In literally any other year in Leicester’s history, this would have been a catastrophically bad outcome. Even in Leicester’s only previous season in the third division, Nigel Pearson’s side played non-league Stevenage in the FA Cup first round and won 3-0 with goals from Lloyd Dyer, Matty Fryatt and Andy King.
Oh for players of half that quality now, and a man with one-tenth of Pearson’s stature to lead them. We are light years away from even our previous lowest league finish, that title-winning 2008/09 season, at present. These days, “Leicester City” is made up of a seemingly random bunch of names each week, thrown together as if past glories count for anything against any reasonably well-organised third division opposition.
Last night, those names included Stevenage-born winger Riley Carr and young midfielder Tommy Neale in the starting lineup and the magnificently-named Hugo De Lisle on the bench.
We wanted youngsters. We’re certainly getting youngsters. But whether a framework exists for these youngsters to slot into and be afforded breathing space to embark on their careers is up for debate.
Well, it’s not actually. Right now, sadly, this is an appalling place to start out. You’ll get chances to play, but the overall strategy is in tatters. There are far too many players and still no real idea as to how the vast resources available translate into a team capable of stringing results together against League One opponents.
Stevenage, like everyone else, had watched the tapes. They waited for Leicester to repeatedly pass their way into goalscoring positions and then waited to take the inevitable goal kick. How we’ve managed to find quite so many professional footballers who can’t put their foot through the ball to finish a chance is quite an achievement. The season is somehow only two months old and this tale already feels demoralisingly familiar. Weak finishing, soon punished.
It was also written that Wanya Marcal would score against Leicester this season. He played just 24 minutes against his former club before turning Christian McFarlane inside out and firing a ferocious shot in off the bar to give Stevenage the lead. If we wanted someone to challenge Luke Thomas for the left-back position, the club have managed to find someone who’s doing a poor job of it so far. Improvement need.
Leicester hadn’t been terrible in overall play but there’s still nothing about this side that makes you think they’re going to keep many clean sheets or score more goals than the opposition on any kind of regular basis. They’re so anaemic at both ends of the pitch.
The set of Brighton loanees are a surprising source of frustration. Kamari Doyle was relatively lively here but generates no power in his shooting. Tommy Watson has been a crushing disappointment so far for a player who we were told would ruin defences at this level. Harry Howell was a late substitute and did what he does, twisting inside and out before producing nothing at the end of it all. One or two of the three might still come good but they’ve been a huge letdown up to now.
Which is all you can also say for Admir Bristric, sadly. The right type of signing but not necessarily actually the right signing. The early signs, especially around his first touch, are concerning, with a four-year contract ahead.
At the other end of the pitch, there is no confidence. The consecutive list of teams against whom Leicester have failed to keep a clean sheet now reads: Oxford United, Stockport County, Barnsley, Fulham Under 21s, Stevenage.
The only surprise here was that neither of the home side’s goals came from Leicester giving the ball away at the back.
Stevenage doubled their lead just before the hour when Oliver Sanderson, signed from non-league Woking in the summer, stole ahead of Sammy Braybrooke at the near post to nod into the net.
Leicester’s substitutes raised the overall performance level slightly, especially when Emil Riis slammed in to reduce the deficit with twenty minutes remaining. A lot of teams look inevitable in such circumstances, piling on the pressure until their tiring opponents wilt. By contrast, Leicester look evitable in these scenarios, as they did at MK Dons, as they did at Barnsley. Easy to repel. Hard to trust.
So no, this is not currently a team you can watch with any faith, regardless of how many passes they make or shots they have. Brussellball didn’t work again here and it rarely feels like it will work often enough to send this team into the upper reaches of League One.
Optimistic souls can point to the possession percentages and say it’s only a matter of time before things go in Russell Martin’s favour for the first time in years. Until then, we can be forgiven for feeling sick of seeing the same thing over and over. Or drifting away, as many did in the dying seconds at the Sporta Arena. At least they’d made it past half time.
The season is still young but if Leicester City don’t manage to change soon, they’re going to have to think about changing the manager.
