Leicester City 2 Birmingham City 1: 30,000 heartbeats racing
The Foxes left it late to see off Birmingham. If ever the saying “nothing worth having comes easy” represented a football team, it'd probably be us. Fitness trackers off the charts, wild celebrations and touching tributes were the theme at a sun drenched King Power.
More heart In mouth moments than you could list, a Chris Wood style goal against us, several mantra-style chants of ‘how has that not gone in’, players out on their feet, late subs and an even later goal to seal the victory. This game had it all really, the full mix of the sublime and the chaotic that is 2023/24 Leicester City.
Sending heart rates skyrocketing and making fitness trackers register the experience as a strenuous activity, it was touch and go. This despite feeling that we had dominated the match, possession and shot stats firmly on our side.
The swell of emotion in the crowd was high, partly as it was a tribute to Vichai but largely connected to the knowledge that Ipswich had already lost and our M69 rivals, Coventry, were putting Leeds to the sword.
A golden opportunity after a couple of months of subpar showings and points dropped. Surely we'd press our 1-0 advantage and put Birmingham out of sight? Chances don't come more gift wrapped with a bow on top than this.
A day of gifts in the Championship
Those masochists of you who stuck with the Norwich v Ipswich game as it entered post 85 minute Tractor time were rewarded as the Canaries held on. Perhaps they were right when they spent all of their time on Monday at the King Power chanting they were coming for you, Ipswich (although one Derby win doesn’t close a 20 point gap). Gift number one to Leicester City.
The full-time score was excitedly announced over the tannoy as the players were warming up. Maybe they’re really good at blocking it out, but it felt like another tick in the pressure column. Whereas Norwich had a backdrop of storm clouds, the atmosphere for this game was wholly different. The sun was shining, those of us holding coats (me) looked like idiots and the pre-match feeling wasn’t as nervy either.
Photo: Becky Taylor
Enzo Maresca opted to keep his starting eleven from Monday’s victory, Daka given the nod again up front. A decision that looked to pay off midway through the half. For all of the grumblings, from those around me anyway, about Daka, Maresca prefers him. With the pass he played to Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall to open the scoring, I do understand why.
After Abdul Fatawu had cut into the box and somehow ended up on the ground, he did well to receive the stray ball and knock it to Daka. Most were screaming at the striker to turn and shoot, being just yards out. Instead, he saw Dewsbury-Hall open in the box and slotted the ball back, the midfielder striking into the bottom corner, 1-0 to the Foxes.
Our local boy is nominated for Championship Player of the Year and adding his 12th goal of the season won’t do him any harm in the race to be crowned. I’ve spoken before about how key he was going to be in this run-in and he was heavily involved throughout.
This was another performance to, largely, enjoy. We had both of our wingers involved and the only real criticism you could level before Birmingham’s goal was our tendency to over-engineer instead of shooting. The signs were encouraging though and you felt we were on top approaching the halfway mark. But Leicester will Leicester.
Playing the risk game
To concede in the fashion we did, at the time we did, was horrific. Ironically, I had to rely on descriptions from those around me, and replays later, as a group big enough to try and cram into a clown car filed out slightly early for half-time on the row in front, leaving me unable to see why, but confident we’d conceded. On the stroke of half-time too.
Pre-match statistics about Birmingham having not beaten us since 2011, being winless away from home in 13 started to linger in the mind again. Leeds were losing at half-time, Ipswich had already fallen, surely we had to capitalise on these things and really put things back in our hands again (sorry for the Brendan-ism).
A stupid goal of this nature has been coming with the risk-reward style of football we play. It would be easy to point fingers at Mads Hermansen, and some inexplicably did by booing him at half-time (some of the booing was more at the style and nature I assume), but it’s a byproduct of this approach to football.
Easy to understand why some just cannot get on board with Enzoball when you see this. Letting Jay Stansfield score was the second gift of the day, Leicester continuing a bizarre trend of just giving other teams what they want. For everything risky about passing out from the back and the complacency at which we sometimes do it, there’s the flipside, that style of football is also why we created 17 chances, 9 of those on target.
In Mads’ defence, he’s saved us far more points this season than he’s cost us or risked. It’s not pretty but it was telling that Maresca lingered on the pitch at the whistle to wait for him and put an arm around. It’s easy to forget that by goalkeeping standards, Hermansen is effectively very young and still learning too.
There was a sense of a tempo change after the half-time break again, influenced by the game being levelled no doubt. Callum Doyle was replaced by James Justin, it’s unclear if this was tactical or if Doyle has a knock. As we were looking to spend large portions of the second half camped in the Birmingham end, Justin would be a safer choice should the away side look to counter us.
The Leicester Late Show
It was a long wait for further substitutes. Despite the likes of Wilfred Ndidi looking to be off the pace just midway through the second half. The crowd were understandably frustrated after the second or third time that Fatawu slid a ball ahead, only for Ndidi to not even really chase it down.
Despite Enzo sharing the frustration, he didn’t rush to address it. Instead, Daka was the first to make way for our favourite pest, Jamie Vardy.
The pressure on Birmingham’s goal had been building, but the ball just wasn’t going in. John Ruddy seemed to be able to get a body part to every clear cut chance and despite some pinball moments in the goal mouth, people tried to put feet on balls they should have headed or just missed altogether. It still felt like a goal was coming though, a far cry from the games of previous months whereby we just took lots of shots that were never going in.
When Enzo finally rolled the substitute dice in the 81st minute, Fatawu made way for Yunus Akgün to take his place on the wing and Ndidi was finally allowed to rest, Dennis Praet replacing him. Akgün has been an enigma, movement and energy rivalling the Duracell bunny and a desire to win the ball and make something happen…except, he’s seemed to struggle with that last part. Not today though.
Fresh legs aided us though with just ten minutes left to make something happen. We’d been laying siege to Ruddy’s goal for some time. The breakthrough finally came in the 87th minute, another huge goal for Stephy Mavididi and the reward for a dominant display.
Both of our late subs were involved in the winner. He isn’t that popular with the majority of our fans but Dennis Praet has a tenacious quality, it was his desire to keep the ball and make space so that he could square it to Akgün on the wing. The Turk delivered a perfect ball into the box for Mavididi to head home. Cue wild celebrations in front of the Kop, down the sidelines with subs and Enzo and in the stands.
With Coventry holding on, and Leeds about to lose, it was all eyes on us and our ability to see this through. Personally, knowing I’d be driving home past the Leeds coaches going the other way on the M69, I really wanted to be able to enjoy that. We left it late, but maybe that makes it all sweeter based on the feeling of relief and the scenes at the end.
Tributes and togetherness
Photo: Josh Holland
Was everybody else emotionally exhausted when they got home? It felt like a pretty wild day. This game marked the celebration of what would have been Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha’s 66th birthday. Despite keeping it very quiet, the club gave out free beer or water and spicy Thai breadsticks to mark the occasion. Despite the cynical sense of it trying to lift spirits, the breadsticks were pretty good.
Fans had been asked to bring scarves and to ensure we sang ‘Vichai had a dream’ as a tribute. With Top in the stands, and the difficult time we find ourselves in, it was great to come together over something again and provide a bit of a buzz in the stadium.
Yes, Leicester are top again, with a small buffer over Ipswich and Leeds and that game in hand. But it was the togetherness that sticks in the memory. Only a few games ago, many of us shared concerns about body language from the side. Based on this and the evidence against Norwich, whatever that was is in the past. The way the celebrations played out today, everybody was involved.
We look like a side who both believe in our abilities and know we can do something. Yes, it ran closer to the wire than we wanted, but it continues a reverse of fortunes that we are now on the right end of the late goals again.
A lot has been made about the atmosphere and its issues at the King Power. One game doesn’t solve that but this felt like a step in the right direction. Seeing the scarves aloft for ‘When you’re smiling’ and the renditions for Vichai in the 66th minute were brilliant and fans actually stayed to applaud the team at the end. It’s easier of course when it’s been back to back home wins, but this Leicester team needs this.
Six more to go, just three more at home and very few Saturday, 3pm kick-offs. It’s a quick turnaround now for Maresca’s men, Millwall away next on Tuesday night.
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