West Bromwich Albion 1 Leicester City 2: Winks murder
Another trip to the Hawthorns, another moment of magic. West Brom: why is it always you? James Knight looks back on the Winks that was.
Most goals are normal goals. You score them, have a little clap, and forget the details within a few days.
Then there is another kind. Every now and again, you pop in a goal that feels different. That you’ve watched 45 times within an hour of full time and you aren’t going to forget.
Harry Winks’ sliding studder into the bottom corner in the third minute of stoppage time fell firmly into the second category. A goal that felt like a massive moment in Leicester’s season, up there with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s last minute winner to beat Coventry on opening day.
The Foxes were on the brink of relinquishing top spot, of seeing the gap to third cut again. One long throw had already ended up in the back of our net, and West Brom were threatening another. Until everything changed in a flash, and the vibes were back again.
The Winkseh winner
As the clock ticked into stoppage time, after Josh Maja had bundled home a scrappy equaliser, I scribbled a note asking ‘where is the killer instinct?’. Twice in a week, the cornerstone of the Idea, suffocating the game with possession after taking the lead, had collapsed at the first sign of pressure.
Well, I got my answer. Sometimes counter-attacks end up with strange goalscorers, and perhaps most players would get their head down and sprint 80 yards in the last minute if they saw no defenders ahead of them. But the fact that it was Winks who did this for Leicester was surely no coincidence, a man who has, slightly unexpectedly, become a key leadership figure in this team.
His goals have gained four points, pulling Leicester through games against QPR and now West Brom late on when the pressure was on. Not only that, but he has forged a bond with the crowd that’s barely matched by any other player. There haven’t been many new signings who have done that, certainly not as quickly as this.
Part of the reason for it is that he seems so available. He scored, then celebrated with the crowd. At the final whistle, he pegged it over to the crowd again, all alone, to give it the big one. Within ten minutes of full time he was sat in full kit in the Sky Studio giving a post-match interview. It’s a far cry from Youri Tielemans recording a farewell Instagram video in the middle of a relegation fight.
We build from the back
Late winners heal all wounds, so it’s fair to say that without it the tone of this piece would have been very different. For a long time, the game played out as more or less a repeat of Wednesday night, a lot of possession to no real end and a complete lack of chances.
It seems clear that the system isn’t quite working as it should at the moment. It’s harder to tell if that’s a result of players making bad decisions or something more fundamental. For long periods, it feels as if lines between trying to score a goal and trying to maintain possession at all costs have become blurred, so a player’s first instinct is to roll it backwards rather than look for a riskier pass.
In the first half in particular, Leicester were poor for long periods. Once again, it looked a lot like Rodgers Ball: all the possession, none of the chances, and handing a bunch to the opposition on a plate. Mads Hermansen was the biggest culprit on this occasion, first giving the ball away outside his area only for West Brom to make a mess of shooting into an open goal, before passing straight to an opponent again and having to save the resulting shot.
The most frustrating aspect, however, was Leicester foraying forward into good positions only to turn around and play it all the way back into our own half. At one stage, James Justin surged forwards on a 40 yard run, only to stop, pass sideways, and run back so that Stephy Mavididi was left with no option but to go back as well. Kasey McAteer did the same thing on a counter attack later in the half, a long forward run that ended with a sharp 180 and a backward pass.
You can see why they do this, as twice it dragged opposition players out of position and allowed Vestergaard to play fantastic straight balls to feet that took the West Brom midfield out of the game. One led to a Mavididi shot onto the post a second to the best chance of the half, when Kelechi Iheanacho sent a defender into the stands before tamely shooting wide. But it’s also clear that even the players realised they were being too cautious.
By the second half, there was clear intent to play those forward balls quicker, and visible frustration on the pitch when it didn’t happen, or someone made a mistake. Maresca was annoyed on the sideline, Winks and Mavididi were shouting at each other, Ndidi and Dewsbury-Hall had a tit-a-tat, and the away end voiced their frustration at yet another attack that fizzled out with a backwards pass.
The Wilf, the Wilf, the Wilf is on fire
As the season is ticking on, it’s becoming clearer and clearer which players form the real backbone of the side, and which ones you can cycle in and out around them. Jannik Vestergaard and Wout Faes at the back, then Winks, Dewsbury-Hall, and Wilfred Ndidi in midfield.
So it was that the first goal came from Ndidi crossing to Dewsbury-Hall, and the second started from a huge Vestergaard header at the back, before the Shepshed lad broke clear to set up Winks. At Hillsborough on Wednesday night, even after giving up a late equaliser, Leicester still had time to create a chance to win it: a Dewsbury-Hall corner to Vestergaard.
The Dane’s proclivity for a yellow card is going to force Leicester to play some games without this core, but the bigger test might be losing Ndidi for a month in January.
Leicester have only lost once when Ndidi has started, and have won every other time. His conversion into a more attacking midfielder looks like a genius move at this level. He makes a huge difference to the midfield, partly because he’s so much better defensively than the alternatives, but also because his movement is much more intelligent.
His party trick is the underlapping run when the right winger has the ball, a move that seems simple but apparently isn’t, given no one else ever makes it when he isn’t there. Once Abdul Fatawu came on, his ability to cut inside and play left-footed passes into the channel freed up that run for Ndidi.
He threatened once before running out of room for a shot, before playing a brilliant one-two with Fatawu to get to the byline and standing it up for Dewsbury-Hall to score a - dare we say it? - trademark header. Replacing Ndidi with Cesare Casadei towards the end seemed an unnecessary risk, given the massive difference in ability between the two at the moment, though it was one we got away with.
Crisis averted
A week that almost ended with dropped points thanks to our third late concession in four games ended up in one of the most memorable moments of the last couple of years.
Many of the questions and criticisms that would have been circling all week might now be consigned to the back-burner. About why there’s such a lack of a cutting-edge despite dominating the ball, about our slightly strange use of substitutions, or the complete lack of Tom Cannon despite some rather lifeless performances up front in recent weeks, all pushed back at least another week.
Most importantly, though, the mood has shifted. You could sense even in an away game that there was frustration bubbling after a tricky period. It was easy to imagine a home crowd getting on the players’ backs after another slow start against The Likes Of Plymouth next weekend.
Now, they’ve bought themselves some breathing room ahead of an easier run of games, leading up to the mega clash on Boxing Day. Time to take the Idea back in for an upgrade, and plenty more time to watch that Winkseh Winner on repeat.
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:
