Northampton Town 0 Leicester City 1: Enzo’s big reveal
Leicester’s first public encounter of the new season ended in a triumph. This first glimpse at Marescaball had James Knight purring at the promise of what’s to come.
A few minutes after half time in the first friendly of the season, I felt the tingle of an unfamiliar sensation spreading through my body. A far cry from a year ago, when every pre-season game increased a dim sense of existential dread, this opening to the 2023/24 campaign was different.
It wasn’t fear, hopelessness, or futility that I felt bursting out. It was a surge of hope and excitement.
This may just have been the first real pre-season game. It may have been played in near hurricane winds. It may have been played against - quite literally - a team of no names, a match in which the statement “I like the look of Trialist F” qualified as a legitimate piece of analysis. But it was also a sign that the real thing is approaching at warp speed. There are only two more of these to go before Coventry on opening day.
Deprived of the luxury of time, at Sixfields Enzo Maresca had to show his hand. And boy did that hand reveal a lot.
Learning lessons
This game taught us many things, and the lessons began before a ball was even kicked. There was no place in the squad for Harvey Barnes or Bouba Soumare. Barnes ‘injured’, again, and Soumare for reasons unknown. Strike them from the squad lists.
Callum Doyle, who only joined the night before, was straight into the team on the left of a nominal back four. Wout Faes was preferred to Harry Souttar alongside Conor Coady. Daniel Iversen had to settle for a place on the bench, behind Jakob Stolarczyk.
As soon as the game kicked off, we got confirmation that rumours of Ricardo’s new life as a midfielder were not exaggerated. He was a right back in name only, and spent the vast majority of the game in central midfield (as, indeed, did James Justin when he replaced the Portuguese for the last half an hour). Leicester’s formation in possession was effectively a 3-2-4-1, featuring the classic Manchester City box midfield.
We can probably assume this is The Formation that Maresca wants to use. It solves the problem of Coady in a two-man central defence, while ensuring there are plenty of bodies in forward positions to join the attack. It could fairly easily transition to more traditional back three with wing backs just by changing the personnel - Justin and Victor Kristiansen could comfortably play those roles.
Then the selections themselves taught us a lot: Timothy Castagne and Wanya Marcal-Madivadua are obviously placeholders. Players who fit the system by providing genuine width and could get to the byline - as indeed they did: Castagne was on hand to set up the only goal and had numerous chances to create more - but who aren’t going to start the season in the team. Likewise Dennis Praet, who is better technically than any other midfield options and good on the press, and Stolarczyk, who is better with the ball at his feet than Iversen.
Mads Hermansen looks likely to be the incoming ‘keeper, while Leicester are being linked with Cesare Casadei for the Praet midfield spot. That leaves the wingers to be sorted out while the rest of the team is gallivanting around in Asia. Hopefully, this year, someone finally finds the ‘Wingers’ scouting file in time for the season to start.
Forward momentum
Even taking into account the weakness of the opposition, Leicester looked utterly dominant. Ricardo’s vision in midfield, which we saw very briefly once upon a time at Crystal Palace in the last days of Brendan, is fantastic. He would often come inside to receive the ball, turn, and play it forward, helping Leicester transition from defence to attack much faster than the Foxes of yore ever did.
Occasionally he and Winks made the same move towards the ball or ended up too close together, most notably on one occasion where the new number 8 absolutely howitzered a pass into Ricardo’s face from two yards away, but that sort of thing is what friendlies are for. Assuming that Ricardo is going to stick around, and with the even bigger caveat of him staying fit, that pair in the middle look extremely good for a Championship team.
The two players in midfield gave the centre backs more options to pass to, while adding Coady and Doyle to the back three gave the defence a far greater range of passing than anything we had a year ago. The result was far more forward intent to go with all the possession. It wasn’t just short passing either, there were a lot of diagonals to the wingers or attempted balls over the top for Jamie Vardy.
Vardy’s spot as the main striker is itself interesting. I have proclaimed him dead at least five times in the last year, yet still he remains. Maresca spoke a good game about wanting him to stay, and he’s walked the walk as well by sticking him up top in his favoured XI.
As his pace evaporates, Vardy relies more on other people creating chances for him, and that they did: one from a tightish angle on the right, one on the left, and one bang in front of the goal. Even though none of them went in, this was a vaguely promising sign that there might still be life in the old goat yet.
The other big advancement on Rodgersball was how many bodies Leicester got forward. The back three protected by a midfield two left enough players for there to be at least four men in the box when the ball went wide. They never really made enough of the opportunities this provided until the actual goal, which came from some nice interplay on the edge of the Northampton box. Ricardo drove to the byline and his cross deflected to Castagne, who stuck it on Dewsbury-Hall’s head.
Woe for the bench warmers
The second half threatened to descend into farce when Northampton began to use their bench, which featured eight trialists with the rather dehumanising names of ‘Trialists A-H’. Leicester’s bench, on the other hand, featured almost as many internationals.
One suspects that the mentality of the two sets of replacements was equally far removed from each other. Maresca only made two subs at half time - swapping goalkeepers and replacing Doyle with Kristiansen - and everyone else played an hour. The team that played the final third couldn’t have screamed ‘reserves’ any louder if they all had it branded onto their foreheads.
Some were playing unfamiliar positions: Daka on the left wing, Ndidi in a ludicrously advanced midfield role, Justin in central midfield, Kristiansen at left centre back. For others, like Iheanacho, Vestergaard, Choudhury and Iversen, being cast in the replacement role again has got to sting. It’s one thing to be a reserve in a Premier League team, but you can hardly imagine them wanting to lurk around the fringes of a Championship side.
Some of them did a decent job: Ndidi missed one great chance, set Daka up to miss another, and, in a scarcely believable sequence, was caught offside running onto a through ball behind the defence. Albrighton and McAteer brought energy to the team, and in general there was an air of intensity about the whole thing.
There were, however, pretty clear weaknesses in the second team that explain why they are in that role. There was a dramatic drop off in forward passing once the second half spine of Iversen - Souttar - Vestergaard - Kristiansen - Justin - Choudhury came in. While Stolarczyk had some hairy moments trying to pick passes, Iversen doesn’t even have the ability to attempt them. Winks and Ricardo are extremely intelligent footballers, while Choudhury and Justin are nowhere near that level.
Daka and Albrighton, meanwhile, are emphatically not capable of playing the wide role in this system. The Zambian’s role is curious, given that he’s the sort of striker who should be kept away from the ball as much as possible. He may ultimately be Vardy’s back up once the shooting starts, but it doesn’t bode well for Maresca’s opinion of him if he’s not even trying him there for now. Watching him try to go past people on the wing is harrowing stuff.
Fill the transfer warchest
Leicester have backed the manager to the hilt so far, in allowing him to totally overhaul the coaching staff. Now they have to let him get stuck into the playing staff as well. Reports on Friday suggested we settled for a loan for Doyle because of FFP fears (£), and this game demonstrated that at least four new signings are necessary just to get the manager the starting eleven he wants.
It’s time to start selling. Barnes has to get sorted this week. We are paying the likes of Vestergaard and Iheanacho too much to be substitutes in the Championship. Praet and Soumare likewise. Castagne doesn’t want to be here. Iversen would be a decent goalkeeper for lots of teams but can’t play the way Maresca wants. We haven’t even got to Danny Ward yet. I think Alex Smithies is still around.
By next week we could have a squad containing five goalkeepers and one winger. And that winger isn’t even in the first choice team. This trip was the first time Maresca had to nail his colours to the mast and tell us what he thought of the squad. His actions spoke volumes.
So far this summer, the club has seemed to be listening. Despite a couple of lulls, there’s clearly a lot going on behind the scenes to bring new names in. This game was an exciting statement of intent, a glimpse at what the future might look like: lots of attacking, lots of chances, a dominant side. But it was also a reminder of how much work there is still to do.
Get on with it.
