Gauge against the machine: Leicester City 0 Manchester City 1 (29 October 2022)
Leicester City have only conceded five goals across the past four Premier League visits from Manchester City. The only problem is that we haven’t scored in any of those games and we’ve lost them all.
That’s why there was a familiar feel to this game - a repeat of the same nature documentary with the predators toying with their prey. Since Ricardo’s Boxing Day rocket nearly four years ago, it’s been very samey every time Pep Guardiola has brought his talented troops down Filbert Way. The away side dominate possession. Leicester waste a couple of good chances on the break. It only takes one goal to win it, and that’s what happened yet again here.
However, with the pressure relieved slightly by successive victories over Leeds and Wolves, this was one of the few games so far this season when the performance was important. It made a nice change to come away from a game without a feeling of fury or hopelessness.
Coming up against Manchester City is always a yardstick for progress and Leicester showed enough to prompt some optimism for the rest of the season.
Finishing school
Leicester worked incredibly hard all afternoon and were let down by a sloppy start to the second half. Nampalys Mendy gave away the foul but there had already been two unnecessary Hollywood balls from the otherwise exemplary Youri Tielemans cut out in the first two minutes after the interval.
You could argue Kevin de Bruyne’s 49th-minute free kick was worthy of winning any game. In truth, the position was perfect for the strike and it seemed naive of Mendy to offer up a chance when his team-mates had done so much in the opening 45 to deny opportunities from open play.
De Bruyne then watched on as his compatriot almost scored an even better one just four minutes later. The first-time volley Tielemans struck from a James Maddison corner would have gone straight into the top five goals in Leicester City’s history if it had hit the back of the net instead of being tipped onto the bar by Ederson. It was one of 10 shots Leicester took to Manchester City’s 15, which reflected the general feel that, despite ending in defeat, this was a decent performance.
A roar of approval at the final whistle had seemed unlikely halfway through the second half. There were a few yawns instead as Manchester City knocked the ball about and Leicester let them. Without Erling Haaland up top and with very little pace elsewhere in the side, Guardiola’s team looked pretty dull for the most part. In fact, the visitors looked ready to bore us into submission as the clock wound down.
Instead, the way Leicester finished the game could be one of the more important goalless 20 minutes of the season. Although it didn’t lead to any points, it proved we could compete and the reception given to the players after a relatively rousing finale felt especially vital given the vast majority in attendance won’t see them in league action in the flesh again until Boxing Day.
Fast forwards
It was understandable that most fans were happy to see Jamie Vardy back in the starting lineup to face a team he has terrorised on several occasions. Fresh from his first goal of the season last Sunday at Molineux, there was hope Vardy would be the right man to unsettle the Manchester City backline.
This was not prime Vardy though, perhaps deflated by the absence of his apprentice in the opposition squad. The energetic contribution of another Red Bull alumnus, Patson Daka, for the final 20 minutes seemed like another sign the baton is ready to be handed over.
Daka didn’t provide the only intriguing cameo. He was introduced alongside Kelechi Iheanacho as Brendan Rodgers decided the time was right to go for it. Perhaps this gear shift could have been made ten or twenty minutes earlier, particularly as Iheanacho looks like someone constantly trying to get up to the speed of a game.
We know what he is capable of when given a run in the team. While Iheanacho’s radar may be off at the moment, with one promising sight of goal leading to a scuffed shot gathered by Ederson at his near post, there’s still an inescapable sense that he makes things happen.
About Wout
The obvious talking point in recent weeks has been the impact of Wout Faes and it was no different here. Moving to a back three meant the need for a real leader at the heart of a defence in need of direction. Caglar Soyuncu was retrieved from a locked broom cupboard at Seagrave and Daniel Amartey trusted to cope with the visitors’ pressing game.
With Jonny Evans still unavailable, Faes has needed to show leadership rather than mere competence. He looks like the real deal, which is such a relief. It helped, of course, that he didn’t have to deal with the threat of Haaland. The Norwegian’s replacement, Julian Alvarez, failed to take a shot or make a chance in his 77 minutes on the pitch.
We’ve been searching for defensive answers for so much of this season. Faes is emphatically one. The surprise return of Soyuncu offers the possibility of another when needed too.
Next up
Leicester’s 100% away record from the last one game faces its next test with a trip to Goodison Park next Saturday. It’s hard to know whether Frank Lampard’s men will be confident ahead of that one as, at the time of writing, they’re drawing 0-0 at Fulham.
Thankfully, Leicester are proving with every game they deserve, at the least, a place in the same pack as teams like those. There are lots of average teams in this league. With every passing week, there are more and more candidates to be worse than us. Given where we were a month or two ago, that should be cause for celebration.
