Leicester City 3 Rotherham United 0: Foxes sitting pretty atop the Championship tree
So here it is, Merry Christmas, everybody's having fun...eventually! Enzo's super Foxes overcame a stubborn Rotherham side to proudly sit top of the tree at Christmas (Editor’s note: Again! - loved Marc Albrighton’s Instagram nod to this position). Iain Wright was on brownie eating, kid-wrangling match report duty as the Foxes played their final home game of 2023.
You might think you’ve seen that first forty-five minutes of football play out before at the King Power, a team with all men behind the ball and Leicester City patiently trying to grind them down. It doesn’t necessarily make for the easiest of watches, but Maresca’s men know that patience pays off, a comfortable 3-0 victory secured in the second half.
Bragging rights assured for Foxes fans at the Christmas table nationwide. If you find yourself a few tipples in, gazing at the Christmas tree and seeing Harry Winks’ face in place of the angel at the top of the tree, you’d be forgiven after his performances so far. Maresca’s men can hopefully enjoy some turkey themselves before the big showdown at Portman Road on Tuesday.
Christmas Traditions, new and old!
For match going fans, there's inevitably a pre-match routine to attending games. With Christmas approaching though, mine (and others) was very different yesterday as I had the children with me for the game and pre-match involved some last minute bits at Fosse Park and lunch, presents etc. at my sister's before making our way to the Stadium.
The children enjoyed the snow globe, the gospel choir and the free brownie (hopefully the latter will wash out their shirts!). A huge thank you again to Top for his generosity, it’s become quite the tradition now for Foxes fans.
Once inside the stadium, and after my 5 year old had nearly impaled someone with his honesty flag, we were met with the very familiar scenario we've seen all season, whereby Rotherham sat in the deepest of deep blocks and challenged Leicester to break them down.
The first half, in all truth, resembled a training exercise. There were a few grumbles in the crowd about it being boring, but I think complaints about the style of play are misplaced. I think that it's not our style of play that some are finding boring, it's the repetitive nature of how the opposition are setting up. Which actually speaks volumes about how we have been playing and Maresca’s tactics. We've seen teams 'come for a point' many times in the past, but Rotherham (just one of many this season) are simply trying to avoid a pasting.
How many words are there in the thesaurus for patience?
The way Leicester City set up and played yesterday is the only way of playing when facing such a deep block like Rotherham. We can't counter-attack a team who don't attack and the statistics don’t look at the Millers performance favorably; no corners, no goal attempts, no shots on target. You have to feel for their traveling fans, there’s not much to get behind.
Maresca’s men can't press and fly into tackles against a team who didn't want the ball and actively seemed to enjoy giving it away in risky positions (some of their play out of the back would have had even Russell Martin panicking on the sidelines).
Patience is a virtue though, a well practiced one for Leicester this season, and until we face a higher calibre of opposition, the way yesterday panned out will be repeated a lot in our remaining games. One hopes that Ipswich Town, renowned for their passing, can offer a better challenge this week.
As has been the case all season, in the second half the pressure finally told. Following yet another tactical tweak from Enzo, with Faes on the left yesterday and Justin and Ricardo trading sides a few times.
The Faes tweak hadn't been an overwhelming success previously and had made us unbalanced when tried previously. Yesterday it allowed the Belgian the space to storm forward on a number of occasions, one of which led to the opening goal. Cue celebrations and a bit of anxiety evaporating amongst the less convinced parts of the crowd.
Patson Daka was in the right place to open the scoring, allowing us a chance to see the excellent (nerve-wracking?) celebration again. ‘Did you see the flips he did?’, I asked my nine-year-old gymnastics loving daughter and was promptly put in my place with ‘It was a round-off into a back flip actually Daddy!’ Fair enough!
The Daka Effect
With Rotherham's resistance broken, Maresca’s men threatened to run riot and rather than our opposition switching to attacking, they seemed to just sit back and take it again. Ricardo, who'd not had to do any defending whatsoever all game, abandoned tracking back as he gracefully pulled the strings in midfield alongside the maestro that is Harry Winks.
Mavididi's quick feet were a real asset in the tight spaces and Daka's pace earned a penalty as he was brought down by former Fox, Viktor Johansson, in the Rotherham goal. That felt like the definition of ‘taking one for the team’.
Daka dispatched the penalty to make it four in four since he returned to the team. It's worth considering that, after the goals had dried up a little (by this season's standards) in November, since Daka has been in the side we've scored at least three goals. He'll be a real loss when he's at the AfCON in January. Along with the others we’ll lose, which is probably the only real concern Foxes fans can have right now.
With Rotherham putting up all the resistance of most of us tomorrow when we get offered one more chocolate from the tin, the chances were flowing and Casadei finished a lovely move, his first touch after coming on being a lovely diving header into the bottom corner in front of the Kop. Everybody loves a diving header, right?
A Christmas Cushion
The gap to Ipswich in second is now six points and the gap to third is still thirteen points as we look towards the huge game on Boxing Day. My mother in law and the children's Nanny has always had the mantra of winning home games and taking a point away. If you look historically, a point would indeed be welcome on Boxing Day, a date where, over the years our results have been like receiving Lynx Africa; utterly predictable and not particularly welcome! Our form against Ipswich has been questionable too.
However, with the form we're in, Foxes fans can look forward to watching it on Boxing Day as Enzo and the boys go to Portman Road aiming for all three points, which would surely leave us with one hand on the trophy.
Merry Christmas to you all and, it's looking like it should be a very happy New Year too!
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
