Leicester City 0 Arsenal 1: Lose yourself
When you come out of a football ground humming Eminem’s Lose Yourself, you want it to be because you’ve seen a rousing, battling performance worthy of a cinematic soundtrack, not because your team only had one shot.
Not that anyone could accuse Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall of “blowing” his one shot. It wasn’t even a half-chance. It was, according to the Gods of xG, one in a hundred. Given we had precious little else to get excited by all afternoon, the home crowd still gave it an “ooh!” as it sailed past Aaron Ramsdale’s post.
It’s a strange feeling waking up the day after watching your team do nothing all game. There’s an emptiness where the reflection on moments of excitement should be. The players will still have worked hard chasing Arsenal around the midfield and trying to close off gaps in the back line. But there was zero for the home crowd to feed off other than some frustrating refereeing as Arsenal killed the game with a series of stoppages.
There were a couple of positives if you looked hard enough - signs of Wilfred Ndidi getting back to somewhere approaching what we know he can be and another solid showing from Victor Kristiansen up against Bukayo Saka. Overall though, this feels like a team in transition which just needs to haul itself over the line come the end of the season.
Musical armbands
The captain’s armband is the perfect example of this. Handed to the perennially injured Jonny Evans at the start of the campaign after Kasper Schmeichel’s swift departure, with Marc Albrighton - now out on loan at West Brom - as deputy, it was always likely our captain on the pitch would be someone else.
Youri Tielemans has had it for most of the season despite his contract situation. It doesn’t matter how professional you might be if the rallying cry is “once more into the breach dear friends, but only a few more times after that because I’m off in the summer”.
Vardy’s had it. Maddison’s had it. It was Ndidi’s turn again for the visit of Arsenal. The kicker is that you look around the lineup on Saturday and there were few alternative candidates for one reason or another, and that says something about the lack of established leadership in this side.
In time, Kristiansen or Souttar or Dewsbury-Hall could step into those roles but they’re not there yet and we might benefit from a Cambiasso-style signing in the summer to help smooth the transition.
Take six
February’s fixtures always looked likely to be tough and there were a few fans filing down Filbert Way after the game making reference to the overall points haul. Two wins from four games including three of the current top four was possibly the best we could have hoped for.
Nonetheless, it also feels like we’ve lost a bit of momentum since half time at Old Trafford. Those expecting us to tear into Arsenal like we did against Tottenham were left sorely disappointed as the visiting midfield switched the ball from flank to flank with ease and their centre-backs gobbled up our few counter attacks.
So should we be looking up or down? Wins for Leeds and West Ham made the league table look even tighter beneath us while Everton’s defeat against Aston Villa at Goodison Park was a welcome respite from their upturn in home form under Sean Dyche. And at least Forest got smashed in a morale-sapping manner.
New blues
Looking at the past month as a whole, the new signings have made an impact and there’s still optimism ahead of a kinder run of games.
Without wanting to jinx us, Leicester are likely to have more than one shot against Southampton next Saturday. With Maddison hopefully back, we need Tete to be restored to Villa Park levels of effectiveness rather than the peripheral figure we’ve seen since. There were flashes of what he can do in the first half at Old Trafford. We can’t afford to have passengers though and the Brazilian flags will be back on eBay if he doesn’t show up again soon.
Given how weak we’ve been at the back for a while now, plenty of fans were looking forward to a bit of steel with the addition of Harry Souttar. He hasn’t been as physical as expected but his stature has been helpful and, as with Tete, he’s had a baptism of fire coming up against the likes of Harry Kane and Marcus Rashford in his first few games in the top flight.
Kristiansen is the pick of the bunch so far though and this was another aggressive performance that restricted Saka.
Pictures and plans
While a relegation scrap is all about digging out enough points to survive, the bigger picture looms large. If there were still any Leicester fans unsure about the importance of James Maddison, this was the day when it was really left in no doubt whatsoever.
With Youri Tielemans on the bench too, there was nobody to get on the ball in midfield. We had plenty of willing chasers and runners but no calm controllers and distributors.
Tielemans left the stadium with his foot in a protective boot after landing horribly on his ankle, leaving supporters to wonder whether we’ve seen the last of him in a Leicester shirt.
If we do need to replace them both this summer, this game showed the size of the task and the gaping hole in our midfield when they’re not there. And if Tielemans is out for a period, given Maddison’s injury troubles, we’ll need a better plan B for the rest of this season too.
