Aston Villa 2 Leicester City 4: Senior Man & the Samba Boys
182 days, 26 weeks, and 21 games after the season officially started, Leicester’s campaign has sparked into life. A chaotic game in the West Midlands introduced three new signings and delivered three vital points.
Since roughly the 46th minute of that first game of the season, this campaign has been miserable. Every weekend has been a grind. There’s been nothing to look forward to. It’s been the same players doing the same things and getting the same results.
This week, everything changed. This was the first time the overwhelming pre-match attitude was excitement rather than dread. Whispers that we might actually be looking forward to this game echoed around the internet.
The sense of anticipation was enhanced when the team news dropped. All season we have been starting players who we quite like but who we’re also surprised by when they do well: Daniel Amartey, Marc Albrighton, Papy Mendy, Ayoze Perez - if you exclude the ‘like’ part. They were all gone here, consigned to the dustbin of the first half of the season.
Instead, this was a balls to the wall, new era team. A back four who literally only met each other a couple of days ago. No defensive midfielders. Kelechi Iheanacho in from the start. A legit front four. If we got to pick the team by fan vote, this is what we’d have chosen.
Then the whistle went, and it was pure, unadulterated chaos. There were six goals, there could have been ten. Our new defence underwent the Leicester rite of passage and almost conceded inside 90 seconds. Villa hit the bar twice, Wout Faes cleared one off the line. It was breathless and it was brilliant. We are alive again.
Tete
All three new signings started, but there was only one anyone really cared about. We literally haven’t had a right winger all season. There were Brazilian flags all over the away end. An unnamed member of The Fosse Way team requested Tete sass updates throughout the game.
Fortunately, for all our sanity, the boy from Brazil delivered. Merely by existing, he gave us a balance we haven’t had in months. A team forced to defend the whole width of the pitch simply couldn’t cope with all Leicester’s attacking threats. Not every game is going to be as open as this, but it’s sure going to be a lot harder to shut us down with two wingers rather than one.
He was part of a transformed attack, full of an energy that has been missing since the World Cup. High energy and pressing is what the Good Leicester did under Rodgers. Over the last 18 months it’s disappeared, as injuries and an air of malaise has taken hold. On Saturday, it was back with a bang. The high press forced a mistake from Boubacar Kamara that made it 1-1, then Leicester caught him in possession again in the build up to Tete’s goal.
The sound of the crowd – an away end! – when he rounded Emi Martinez to put Leicester ahead wasn’t just a celebration, it was guttural joy and relief as well. Who knows how much Tete himself is aware of the hype, expectation, and genuine happiness that surrounds him. But when he scored, he went mental, pulling off a peak-Mahrez knee slide before just flailing his arms around with delight before Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall bundled into him.
What’s more, it was blatantly obvious that the rest of the team think he’s brilliant. Football is a proper meritocracy. If the other players don’t rate someone, you can tell. We’ve seen the other players treat the two Daniels, Amartey and Ward, as if they’re about to explode week after week. It took Tete about a quarter of an hour to get into the game. By the second half, the other ten players were looking for him with every pass.
Twice after the break he drove at the defence, cut inside, and fired shots just past the far post. It was the Mahrez special. Right down to the way he offered Timothy Castagne absolutely no protection whatsoever. But that doesn’t really matter today. This was as good a debut as we could have dreamed of. For a fanbase crying out for something to cling on to, it was glorious. The full stop to a week that has been like being thrown a life raft, emblazoned in green and yellow.
An Australian, a Brazilian, and a Dane walk into a dressing room
To outsiders, throwing all three signings straight into the team may have looked like a drastic measure. To those of us who’ve been watching this team all year, it was the obvious move.
After about 20 minutes, it looked like we might have bitten off more than we could chew. Tete hadn’t touched the ball, Victor Kristiansen started off shakily against Leon Bailey, whose run set up the first goal. Then Harry Souttar literally scored Villa’s second himself. Leicester’s centre backs are now joint third in our PL goalscoring charts, and they’ve all been at the wrong end.
What was immediately obvious, though, is that both new defenders are massive units and will add the physicality Leicester need at the back. As Kristiansen grew into the game, he was too strong for Bailey and totally shut him down. At one point in the second half, he demonstrated his bastard side, by giving the Villa midfielder a shoulder to the face, then delivering some choice words as he lay prone on the ground.
Souttar was equally aggressive, if less impressive, and in the post-match reaction has been fortunate that the other debutants were so good. Most of Villa’s attacks came down the right-hand side, from overloading Castagne, which forced Souttar to confront tricky attacking midfielders in 1v1 situations. That is obviously not his game, and it makes him look slow and lumbering, bringing up visions of Harry Maguire in the least flattering way.
We can give him the benefit of the doubt for this one, since the trade-off for the mega attacking formation was essentially no protection to the back four. When he was asked to do the sort of thing we’ve signed him for: winning aerial balls and defending the penalty area, he showed some nice flashes. Most notably in the form of a great block on Ollie Watkins just after the hour.
Ultimately, the defence got a free pass in this game because the attack was so good. Had Leicester needed to, we probably could have scored more. And the main reason for that was our star striker. Who wasn’t a new signing, but felt like one because seeing him start up front is such a unique experience.
The Nacho Man cometh
Was this day Kelechi Iheanacho finally answered the doubters for good?
For a long time, it’s felt like he had done everything that was asked of him, and still never got a proper chance. There’s always been a reason why he shouldn’t be playing, often offered up by the manager himself and despite the fact Leicester have looked routinely dreadful for ages while he delivered in every one of his scant appearances.
He doesn’t work hard enough, he’s too inconsistent, he can’t play as a #9, he’s too slow.
At Villa Park he was belatedly handed the keys to the #9 role. He was the main man. And he responded with one of the best all-round displays from a Leicester striker in a long time.
He kept his head to set up Maddison for the first equaliser, scored a header inside the six-yard box for the second, then played a glorious through ball in behind the Villa defence for Tete to give Leicester the lead. In the second half, he beat Ezri Konsa for pace to get in behind himself for a chance that he should have buried.
The simple truth is that neither Vardy nor Patson Daka offer anything like the same package that Iheanacho does. He’s creative, he’s a finisher in the box, he’s far more mobile than he’s given credit for (I would confidently wager James Maddison’s good hip that if Kelechi and Vardy had a race tomorrow, the former would win).
There have been false dawns before, after which he’s been consigned back to a bit-part role from the bench. But Iheanacho surrounded by that much talent is a dizzying prospect, one that would comfortably keep Leicester up. It’s time to ride the hot hand, 2021 style, all the way to the finish.
Looking ahead
This was only one win, but it felt like a transformative moment in the season. The connection between the crowd and the players is back. Unity in the fanbase is back.
Leicester probably need six or seven wins from the remaining 17 games to stay up. That looks a lot more feasible now than it did a couple of weeks ago. We are a streaky team, in a positive and negative way: we spiral when things are down, but we’re dangerous when we’ve got swag.
The defence needs to improve, particularly given the opponents coming up: Spurs next weekend, followed by Arsenal and Manchester United before Blackburn visit in the FA Cup. We cannot be as open against better forwards, or we’ll need to score five every game to compete.
On the other hand, the team that beat Villa was a totally different side to the one that has been blundering along thus far. The atmosphere at the King Power on Saturday will be better than it has been since Forest, and without question it will be healthier: fired up by hope and expectation, rather than as an act of necessity.
A couple of weeks ago, Leicester didn’t have a chance in any of these next three games. Now, we do. And that’s a good a feeling as we’ve had in a while.
Viewpoint
Via @beckytlcfc