Fulham 2 Leicester City 1: Stubborn but falling short
The Foxes travelled to Craven Cottage to face Fulham, their first of three trips to London in a month. A first defeat on the road, but a narrow one on paper. Though with the transfer clock ticking, we really, really need a striker.
Whatever Leicester City served up at Craven Cottage this season, it was likely to be an improvement on our last outing. That day highlighted everything wrong with us in the relegation season. A craven display at the Cottage that left even the most optimistic of fans to crown our demise. Just our team putting in effort this time around would mark an improvement.
Today's loss didn’t compare to the 5-3 of before. That's not to say it isn't worrying, but it shouldn't send you into a rage or make you want to put the whole team into a cannon and fire them into the Thames. As we witnessed against Tottenham in the second half, the fight and the will is there. It's the quality and the depth that is lacking.
Steve Cooper had two new signings at his disposal for the trip to London, Oliver Skipp and Jordan Ayew. The latter only popped up in Leicester blue last night so it wasn't a huge surprise that he didn't start. Cooper opted to stick with the same starting eleven, Jamie Vardy taking another one for the team in back to back starts.
With the arrival of Ayew into the squad, out went Tom Cannon. Reports confirm we'd like at least another one or two attacking additions to the squad which should mean we let poor Cannon go out on loan. It does raise question marks though when the bench contained three defensive midfielders and just one outright striker, albeit we can deputise Stephy Mavididi there.
In the ongoing tour of running into former Leicester players, Timothy Castagne only made the bench for Marco Silva's men, new signing Emile Smith Rowe made his home debut.
The first half appeared to be mostly following the script from the Spurs game. While we were lured into some early false confidence by one good move, the home side quickly took control. We found ourselves tormented on both wings, Adama Traore having particularly fun down our left.
Fulham didn’t need Castagne to haunt us, it was the ghosts of Arsenal past that got the job done. £32 million Smith Rowe opened the scoring for Fulham and the North London theme continued, the winner scored by Alex Iwobi.
Wout Faes had got Leicester level late in the first half after our first run in with VAR this season. But we had no answer for Fulham’s second. A first loss in the league and with the transfer window deadline looming, there's still work to do.
Photo: Becky Taylor
Stubborn but falling short
A little hope can be dangerous. Post Spurs, a lot of fans felt that hope and dare we say it, excitement, building. We were willing to overlook that our recent record in London and at the Cottage recently is poor.
Steve Cooper's record at Nottingham Forest on the road and at the Cottage? Also not great. But we were coming into matchday two with one more point on the board than most of us predicted. It was a first chance to see how we'd set up away from the King Power.
Fulham enjoyed the lion's share of chances in this game, peppering us throughout the game. Mads Hermansen was rightly earmarked as a key player pre season. While he couldn't solely rescue some points today, without his saves, we would have found ourselves two or three down in the first half and already out of it.
There was plenty Cooper and his team would have wanted to show the team clips of to cut it out. We were giving possession away too cheaply, inviting more pressure. Or doing ridiculous things for no reason, see Faes trying to backheel a pass inside our own penalty area.
When we did seem to get ourselves back into the press, things looked more promising but we got into deep defensive shapes too often. The cutting or key passes out were lacking and when we did misplace them, Fulham rightly spun that into a quick attack and tried to hurt us.
It's going to continue to be a talking point, but Abdul Fatawu is having some steep learning curves trying to balance the up and down winger role. Where we look to him to be our shining light on the attack, he's got to do some heavy lifting defensively as he is willing to do but learning it’s a tougher ask than last time out.
Two moments captured the fine tightrope walk he faces this season. Fatawu was at fault for the Smith-Rowe goal having let his man surge ahead of him and not tracking him down, giving James Justin two men to cover. But less than twenty minutes later, he’s involved at the other end. Without Fatawu we don’t win the corner for Faes to head home. He chipped in defensively too, though one tackle he dove into (never targeting the player) was a heart in mouth moment.
For both goals we conceded, our right hand line of defence went missing. James Justin acted as if a chasm had opened up on the pitch that he couldn't possibly step near for the winning goal and gave Robinson time and space to quickly set up Iwobi.
The outcome of this saw Winks trying to step in and being forced into a foot race with Iwobi. There's only ever one winner there. We deserved to be punished for how Fulham orchestrated the move with such ease. For all our stubborn qualities, that was naive play.
It should give Cooper some extra problems to think about. Ricardo remains unused on the bench for a second game. Even when Justin was struggling on the right, we took Kristiansen off on the left (hello Kasey Mcateer wingback) and could have used his creative passing in the middle of the park.
The commentary team called us stubborn Leicester. In WhatsApp groups and online, fans called us dogged, hard working. You name the simile, it's probably been used. What we might lack in quality, the players seem determined to make up for in effort and running.
Whether that's going to be enough to survive this league remains to be seen. It's hard to overlook the somewhat barren feel of our attacking power.
Shots shots shots
Spoiler alert: most of the Leicester City shots today were of the alcoholic kind and likely consumed on the Union FS pre-match boat party. There weren't really any clear cut chances at goal to report on from our side, which is indicative of our main challenge ahead.
While we may have recorded ten shots today, the majority were wild or speculative and didn't trouble Leno in the Fulham goal. We’ve been banging the drum of needing a striker for some weeks now, but where we managed to tape that gap up against Tottenham, it wasn’t working for Vardy today. Our talisman saw more of the offside flag than he did of excellent balls in. The fact we had to start him again given his surprise start earlier in the week is telling.
It’s clear to anybody with eyes that we desperately need another option who can link up play and the obvious choice feels like a big striker. It's hard not to think back to when we signed Islam Slimani (we'll ignore some of the other challenges we had with him). This is a challenge begging to be resolved by signing a big guy up top.
Victor Kristiansen tried to put a couple of balls in and Fatawu made his usual couple of runs down the right and cutting in, but it wasn't coming together. Kristiansen’s cross only ever really had Vardy who could have got there and Fatawu found himself forced to shoot more often than not.
Too often we got suckered into defending deep and found ourselves unable to get out of our own half, cutting off Vardy or forcing our playmakers to come very deep. There were a lot of Jannik Vestergaard standing on the ball looking at options and struggling moments. We tried to run a lot through Winks again but to mixed results at best. It was perhaps a surprise not to get Mavididi on earlier than the 70th minute.
De Cordova Reid looked very much up for it on his return to the Cottage but he doesn't have the same spark or potency Mavididi can bring. Similarly while Buonanotte is a live wire, making excellent moves and generally being a nuisance, he got muscled off the ball too often.
Our goal, coming from a set piece is positive in that our new set piece coach has ideas that are working. But we looked to be relying on those more than we can afford to while we're still working on them. Buonanotte got a second assist, his gorgeous in-swinging corner set up Faes who had a fairly easy time getting his head on the end of it.
We've been crying out for our centre backs to get more goals to their name (at the right end, Wout) so it was timely for Faes to step up. The VAR circus that followed was inevitable if not strange but the right decision was reached, Vardy not impeding Leno's line of sight.
It inspired some hope again. The chance to change it up at half time and see if we could hold on or capitalise. It didn't look like more goals were coming though. While it’s pleasing to see us capitalise on set plays, our chances from open play, or lack thereof, are what has fans nervous.
Photo: Becky Taylor
Ayew ready for it
Jordan Ayew has polarised Leicester fans since the first links for signing him appeared. Regardless of which side of the fence we fall on, the signing didn’t exactly generate excitement.
Ayew brings experience though at this level, a wily sense of what’s needed. What raises the eyebrows is the fee and his age combined. Still, we aren’t really in a position to turn down players who fit into the attacking and creativity spaces.
He made his debut after 63 minutes, replacing De Cordova-Reid and made a pretty instant impact, barely half a minute had passed before he won a free-kick. This came up time and time again in terms of what he would bring to our side, and we lack a player like that since Maddison has departed. That’s probably the last comparison to Maddison we’ll make here but Ayew did put himself about.
Given he’s not had a full training session with the side yet, it wasn’t perfect but you can see where he could slot in and he was trying to make things happen. He took a free-kick in an appealing position that Fatawu had won, and while it wasn’t inspiring, it gives us another option for set piece takers.
He is another player who slots into the hard-worker role, quite how that converts to end product is up for debate and easier to judge after Cooper and his coaches have had time to work with Ayew.
Some fans are asking what the identity of the team is, a fair question given that Cooper is expecting more signings and we probably still haven’t seen pieces of his regular starting eleven yet.
We may not have a clear cut identity in terms of style, hopefully that comes in September with all the pieces assembled, but this isn’t a team whose heads drop after conceding or who don’t seem to care.
This was a match day where most of our other rivals for relegation also failed to pick up points. We aren't down and out already, but it's a tough test next in the league as Aston Villa come to the King Power on August 31st. First, a small distraction in the shape of a Carabao Cup tie against Tranmere.
