Leicester City 1 Bristol City 0: Jamie Vardy, your finish was class
Another game. Another win. Top of the league. And on this evidence, Leicester City will take some shifting from the summit.
While it may not have been the most eye-catching display, it didn’t lead to a flurry of goals and it didn’t produce the most impressive result, this was probably Leicester City’s best performance yet under Enzo Maresca.
Risk and reward
There’s been a lot of talk about fans adapting to Enzoball and learning to live with the patience showed by the goalkeeper and defenders in possession, to reflect that in the stands. During the week, Maresca talked about how he wants us to stay calm if Mads Hermansen has the ball at his feet for thirty seconds because, essentially, those are the instructions. It’s all part of the big idea.
Adapting the mindset of thirty thousand people is an interesting challenge. But we can see the idea is working and there are already noticeably fewer cries to get the ball forward. If the players are starting to show real signs of progress with the process, maybe the fans are too.
After Wednesday’s win at Carrow Road, Maresca said this:
"I think, especially in the first half, we were brilliant in the way we were working. We avoided conceding chances and they didn’t create anything."
And after the final whistle against Bristol City, he said this:
"We have the best defence, just five goals conceded. This is also a consequence of the way we want to play. You have 65 to 70 per cent possession to defend or manage the 30 per cent, probably because of the way we play."
These quotes stood out because I’ve noticed I’m already watching games slightly differently. This is a style of play that tries to minimise risk, to manage threat. Leicester managed to reduce the danger posed by Bristol City to the point of virtual elimination. There was no real concern, not when you’re still on some level used to defenders liable to pass straight to opposition strikers or goalkeepers who avoid goalbound shots. Compared to the past couple of years, this was pure comfort.
I found myself wondering what the experience was like for those in the away end as they watched their side, previously unbeaten in four and coming off the back of a 4-1 win over Plymouth, get absolutely squashed. Their vocal support was tremendous, but their team never looked like scoring. For one thing, their sole shot on target was a 95th-minute free kick struck tamely at Mads Hermansen.
I guess maybe it was a little like what we’ve had to endure at venues like the Etihad in recent years. We talk a bit about how we’re a really good team, honest, and we’ll give them a game. We have some dangerous players. We can fight. We can battle. Then the game starts and we barely cross the halfway line and we lose to nil.
There’s the argument that of course we should be top of the league with the players we have. But for every Manchester City, there’s a Chelsea. And perhaps for every Leicester City, there’s a Southampton.
The stronger argument is that we have to enjoy this while we can. Even if we win the league with 100 points, in 12 months’ time we could be losing 1-0 to Manchester United and sitting through an unbearably smug Jonny Evans post-match interview.
Twinkletoes to the rescue
As the scoreline shows, we did struggle to find the final pass or finish. The good news this season is that even when the players who won us the past couple of games with their dynamism or decision-making are struggling for consistency in the final third, there’s usually someone else to step up with some magic.
Including, now, somehow, Wilfred Ndidi.
I’ll hold my hands up now and say I was clearly wrong when I said a couple of weeks ago that it was time to drop Ndidi for Cesare Casadei. In my defence, I was basing the idea that Wilfred Ndidi wasn’t magically going to turn into a lanky David Silva on nearly seven years of hard evidence. But here we are. Wilf made Bristol City’s midfield look precisely like the one bloke you’ve heard of and four random skinfades that comprise most Championship midfields.
Stuck in traffic on the M1 prior to the game, I’d been listening to Wilf on the When You’re Smiling podcast, expressing in his delicate tones how much he’s enjoying playing for Enzo Maresca. A couple of hours later, watching him dance his way into the penalty area, it was easy to see why. Wilf is seemingly a footballer transformed, Leicester City are benefitting and Casadei will have to show far more than he has in recent weeks to get into the first choice XI.
A tale of two JVs
After Wilf picked himself up, Jamie Vardy dispatched the resulting penalty into the top corner before running the length of the pitch to underline the stupidity of the travelling supporters in abusing his wife as he stood over the spot kick.
But the most electrifying JV storyline at Leicester City these days doesn’t involve the GOAT. It’s The Jannik Vestergaard Redemption Arc, which continued apace here with another commanding display.
Personally, if I’d been able to write this chapter I’d have ditched the Vardy goal, as amusing as the celebration was, and swapped it for Big Jannik’s knuckleball free kick flying into the top corner rather than being deflected over the bar.
The hum of anticipation as he lined it up revealed several things: firstly, how confident we were that a goal would arrive somehow given that this happened ten minutes into the second half at 0-0; secondly, that the majority are now on his side (this was the first game in years I haven’t heard any negativity when his name was announced in the lineup); thirdly, that it would have been almost as good as a goal if he’d replicated the infamous Robert Huth free kick against Stoke.
Either way, JV II more than deserves his place in the team at present and it’s one of our many luxuries that we have a player of Conor Coady’s standing ready to come in when needed.
Roll out the depth chart
It’s the same in the hybrid left/centre-back role where Maresca could call on James Justin to replace Callum Doyle, forced off by a knee injury at half time. Justin is miles too good for the Championship, as he showed with a typically zesty 45 minutes that helped pin the visitors back. And this is who we’re bringing off the bench.
Kelechi Iheanacho was only a substitute, as was Casadei. Yunus Akgun didn’t even get on. This is a seriously strong squad for Championship level, and it means we can reasonably think about rotating a bit for the trip to Anfield.
Excitingly, we also now have depth in wide areas. I’d already decided after five minutes of watching him against Hull that Abdul Fatawu is my new favourite player. I was absolutely delighted to see his name in the starting lineup and within sixty seconds, he’d already performed an ill-advised Cruyff turn in our half.
Fatawu encapsulates the excitement surrounding Leicester City at the moment, both in the short term and the long. His bursts past opposition full-backs are just one of many things making us look forward to watching Leicester this season, while there’s also an eye to the future. What is he capable of if he can realise his obvious potential? What is this team capable of?
Despite the early Cruyffian antics, there were reassuringly fewer stupid things from Fatawu here. No two-footed lunges or 45-yard shots. With better finishing from team-mates, as with Kasey McAteer’s header over at Norwich, Fatawu would have ended with an assist. He’s going to make things happen.
There’s a nagging suspicion that Brendan Rodgers would have taken one look at Fatawu’s unpredictability and consigned him to the Under 21s for the season. That’s why it was so energising to see Maresca pick him from the start. It’s just one example of the way Maresca is freshening up a club that had grown increasingly stale.
The afternoon ended with a warm round of applause for the returning trio of Nigel Pearson, Andy King and Matty James. It was all the warmer for the sense that the good times we associate with names like that are beginning once again.
