Who needs the Champions League?
We’ve covered the decline. We’ve covered the lack of accountability. We’ve covered the massive vacuum where this football club’s strategy should be.
And we’ll no doubt cover it all again.
But sometimes a game comes along that makes you want to forget all that for a few days. This was that game. Forget the opposition. Leicester City fans have been subjected to so many dismal days over the past few years that we’ve earned the right to simply enjoy a good performance and result.
And whether you travelled to “the capital”, as Leicester City’s official Instagram account put it, or you simply chose to navigate Sky’s plethora of red button channels instead of watching PSG play Barcelona in the Champions League, you got it.
After the cautious optimism of Saturday’s 2-1 win over Doncaster, Russell Martin would have been plunged back to square one if this hadn’t been a victory. In the end, it was a comfortable one, the type of game that exposes how ludicrous it is that this club is playing in League One.
The chasm between the resources available to the two sides, already obvious prior to kick-off, was laid bare throughout the evening. That chasm has been narrower up to now when Leicester have taken to the field but it has still existed. No other club in this division is leaving internationals out of its matchday squad.
So while victory was expected, it couldn’t be taken for granted. One of the key differences was how quickly Leicester moved the ball. It was one or two touch and get the ball forward at pace. When a defender needed to launch it, the ball went flying into the night sky rather than being played into a team-mate in a poor position. But another notable aspect was Leicester’s determination to “run and fight”, as Martin has spoken about on several occasions. On an even more basic level, it was that Martin picked players who can run.
This week, The Athletic have been the latest outlet to ask why Russell Martin is so reviled. Their article included this line:
“The head coach… has been given an incredibly young and inexperienced team with which to earn promotion, a fairly rare notion at that level where experience is vital.”
Experience Martin has in the form of Alex McCarthy, Franco Ravizzoli, Dai Cornell, Harry Souttar, Warren O’Hora, Woyo Coulibaly, John Lundstram, Wes Burns, Conor Chaplin, Bobby De Cordova-Reid, Liam Cullen and Emil Riis. And that’s just the players aged 27 or over. Luke Thomas, Will Smallbone and Caleb Okoli all have experience.
So let’s explode that myth. Martin has so many players at his disposal he has the luxury of deciding whether he can achieve what’s needed through youth, experience or a blend of the two.
The answer? Well, the average age of the starting midfielders and attackers has been brought down considerably for the past two games. For the home defeat to Peterborough, it was 27. For these back-to-back wins, it’s been 24.
While Page and Doyle looked tidy and Lundstram was commanding, it was Braybrooke who came to the fore. After a few below-par individual performances, Martin dropped Braybrooke for the Peterborough game in favour of Bobby De Cordova-Reid. This was the search for experience Martin mentioned after losing to Oxford.
The pleasant surprise is that he’s realised he got that wrong. The formation change wasn’t predictable and neither was the reversion to youth. Credit for both must go to Martin, even if change feels belated.
It helped that Leicester could go through the middle, which will always be Martin’s preference. Where 73% of attacks went down the flanks against Doncaster, it was just 62% last night. The gaps were there for midfielders to burst into and the box midfield of Lundstram and Page sitting behind Braybrooke and Doyle provides a central overload with energy down the flanks from Thomas and Alves.
3-0 up (!) at half time?
With just three minutes on the clock, Braybrooke stole the ball halfway inside the Bromley half, manoeuvred the ball away from a defender and slipped a clever through ball inside the full-back for Alves.
Finishing isn’t Alves’s main strength but he took a neat touch before striking a decisive shot into the net at the near post in front of the away end. If he can add goals to his game like this, we have, as we suspected all along, one hell of a player on our hands.
The inside right channel where Braybrooke and Alves combined proved fruitful all night, with the shot map at the end of it concentrated largely in this area. But the second goal came when Louis Page looked left instead to a run inside from Luke Thomas. Although Thomas went down appealing for a penalty, the ball broke to Lundstram who dispatched it for his third goal in five league games.
There have been question marks about where the goals will come from in this side, other than Riis. Lundstram has proven a good source already, something of a novelty for a fanbase wearily accustomed to the non-scoring midfielder (think Skipp, Soumare and co). He ran off tapping the badge on his chest: perhaps a little early in his Leicester career for that but the signs are good so far.
Where players like Lundstram are reliable, thoughts turn to whether others can finally flourish in this new setup. It certainly suits Harry Souttar to play centrally in a three-man defence, as Australians could have told us for years.
The other main beneficiary could be Luke Thomas, who has had good spells during brief flirtations with 3-5-2 in the past. It could be that Bromley is just his level but he was a man possessed in the first half, following up his semi-assist for Lundstram’s goal by committing a good tactical foul and then running onto a long ball and bodying an opponent to the turf.
If we fast forward through countless chances to make it three – a Riis volley off target from a set piece, Doyle’s curling shot easily gathered, Thomas, Lundstram and Braybrooke all wasting good opportunities when clean through – we come to the third goal on the stroke of half time. And it was Leicester’s favourite boo boy that got it.
Again, it was Braybrooke who burst through from midfield and squared the ball. Thomas’s emphatic finish did the rest.
Riis’s piece
As Leicester’s players warmed up for the second half, Kasabian’s Underdog played over the PA system. Perhaps a nod from Bromley or perhaps an established favourite at the Copperjax. Either way, it wasn’t the role Leicester were playing and the hope is that confidence now surges through this side as they start to prove they’re capable of destroying the division after all.
Bromley started the second half well, forcing a corner early on before Kamil Conteh, one of four half-time substitutes, shot just wide from outside the box.
Leicester quickly re-established control of the game though and the only thing missing was a moment for Emil Riis, who hadn’t shone until halfway through the second half. Braybrooke was again sent clear right of centre and waited for Riis to make the movement before touching the ball into his path. Riis’s accomplished low finish at the keeper’s near post was further evidence that Leicester have found the striker they needed at this level.
The final twenty minutes were more of a showcase for experienced players with Will Smallbone making his first appearance alongside Liam Cullen and Conor Chaplin. Purely in terms of household names at third division level, it feels like an embarrassment of riches. Whether they will make an impact is still to be decided.
De Cordova-Reid and Harry Howell joined them and there were chances for Cullen and Souttar to make it five but the work had already been done.
Leicester rise into the top half of the table, three points off the play-offs and with at least one game in hand on the top five. Luton on Saturday will be a test but we finally have a blueprint for success this season. It’s impossible to be optimistic when you’re losing 4-0 at home. It’s easier when you’re winning 4-0 away.
While there may be setbacks ahead, Leicester fans needed reassurance and that will only come with signs of progress. In the past few days, that’s exactly what we’ve seen.
