Brentford 1 Leicester City 1: How to come last on Match of the Day
The Brendan Bus veered back on course with a battling result in West London that saw Leicester break a five game losing streak ahead of the international break.
Alternatively, Leicester slumped to 17th and only remain outside the relegation zone on goal difference as our winless run stretched to six games.
Schrodinger’s point
The reaction to this game has been fairly positive. A good point against a decent team. A nice, and unexpected, second half recovery. A weekend where we aren’t all marching off the nearest bridge by 4.45.
Harry Souttar had his best game for the club and is growing into the lead centre back role, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Harvey Barnes showed signs of life, and Danny Ward has finally been consigned to the goalkeeping graveyard. It was, finally, an example of Leicester digging in and grinding out a result.
Harvey Barnes’ goal, along with Tete’s chance shortly afterwards, were glittering examples of why Leicester should be nowhere near the bottom three. The goal came from some peak Foxes high pressing and the trademark Bit Of Quality from James Maddison. Tete’s subsequent chance might be our best back to front move of the season, where Daniel Iversen’s pass out to Timothy Castagne set off a train of events that led to the Brazilian dancing into the Brentford box a few seconds later.
But despite all of that, we only have one point to show for it. Some nice football, some sloppy football, and conceding from a set piece could describe about 30 different matches over the last two seasons. No shame in a point against Brentford. If we play like this every week we’ll be fine.
For all the platitudes, we ultimately ended the weekend in a worse position than we started it. The sum total of our second half endeavour was a good goal and a couple of blocked shots. Brendan Rodgers was booed by some of the away end when he went over to applaud them.
Many more victories like this, and we are undone.
Falling standards, rising praise
“Had to defend a lot of set pieces, which the guys done great”
It often feels like the King Power lives in an alternate universe in which Leicester are 9th, having masterminded a brilliant rebuilding project and wowed the nation with an endless stream of competence.
I don’t know if Rodgers is more realistic behind the scenes. His decision to drop Danny Ward, having showered him with love until last week, suggests there may be some proper self-scouting going on at Seagrave. But whether the endless positivity in the face of all evidence is actually helping anyone is an open question.
Would a more ruthless manager have dropped Ward for Iversen months ago? Almost certainly. Would that have saved Leicester points in a relegation battle where even a couple of goals here and there might make all the difference? Probably.
So it is with set pieces. If we were more realistic about our failings there, would we have been conceding goals from corners relentlessly for years? Set pieces are all about the little things. The planning and research that goes into every opponent, the organisation that ensures everyone knows where to be and what to expect, and the execution on the pitch so that everyone plays their part.
Well-organised teams do not concede goals like Brentford’s opener on Saturday. Leicester were somehow caught on the hop by a corner routine we didn’t expect, lined up all over the place, and then made a series of individual and collective errors to ensure that the hosts scored.
Maybe Rodgers’ words make no difference, maybe it’s all down to his work on the training ground. But it’s hard to imagine that public acceptance of these kind of mistakes haven’t contributed to them becoming ingrained in his team over many months and years.
(Jamie Vardy, 60’)
In the first half, Patson Daka fired one header into the side netting and blazed a good half-chance over the Brentford bar. In the second, he initiated the press that eventually led to Leicester’s equaliser. He was then replaced by Jamie Vardy with half an hour to go, at which point our attacking threat picked up the ball and went home.
This substitution has been a recurring pattern all season. Vardy has played some part in every one of the 27 Premier League games so far. He has come off the bench 16 times. Vardy has always been a streaky striker, but this is different. He looks finished, a peripheral figure with no ability to impact the game.
This is a reductive stat but one that helps to bear out how utterly uninvolved Vardy is now. He averages 1.19 shots per 90 minutes. That’s a third as many as Iheanacho and Maddison, and half as many as Daka. Comparing him to the rest of the Premier League, his shot numbers slot in just behind Joao Cancelo, Mateo Kovacic, and Oleksandr Zinchenko.
For all the civil war battles over whether Iheanacho or Daka are more of a fraud, the truth is that Vardy is miles worse than either of them. The last vestiges of his power remain in his ability to play the role of professional wind-up metchant when Leicester are winning but, spoiler alert, we don’t ever win. So the logic behind his endless appearances remains a mystery.
Many factors play into the fact this was the first time we have scored an equalising goal in the second half for more than a year. One of them is Vardy and it has to stop. Every time he trundles on we’re sacrificing the chance to bring on a far more dangerous player - Iheanacho in this case - and hurting our play at the same time.
A fortnight of freedom
Leicester don’t play again until we travel back down south to take on Crystal Palace on, aptly enough, April Fool’s Day.
Our April fixtures are almost incomprehensibly big in the context of the season. This point presumably means nothing will change over the international break, but next month is the real put up or shut up sequence of matches.
Palace, Bournemouth, Wolves, and Leeds, followed by Everton in the first week of May, all loom large on the fixture list. That really is the last chance saloon, where trying hard and looking good are no longer enough.
We have chosen not to act until now. Palace are the latest team embroiled in the relegation Royal Rumble to twist. The danger of Leicester prioritising performances over points is that by the time we join them it’ll be too late.
