Che for Mara and the threat of revolution: Leicester City 1 Southampton 2 (20 August 2022)
As serene as this game felt for an hour or so, the lurking danger was always there - it had the feel of a must-win without the ingredients you need to whip up the corresponding atmosphere. The reality for Brendan Rodgers is that he’s created a sense of expectation he’s now light years from meeting.
Not only has Rodgers had us challenging at the top end of the table and going deep in cup competitions but even in a lacklustre campaign like last season, the home support wasn’t as used to disappointment as it often felt. The only team outside of the so-called big six to get a league win on Filbert Way last season was Everton.
For the visit of Southampton, Leicester had the customary hour of 70% possession without creating much and certainly without worrying the opposition goalkeeper. The returning Harvey Barnes looked dangerous and eventually we eked out a goal through James Maddison’s low free kick at the near post.
Then: absolute panic stations. Suddenly all the 50/50s were getting lost, nobody could pass the ball five yards to each other and there was no threat at all going forward. Southampton scored twice and three games in, Leicester City are in the relegation zone.
Defender or striker?
We hear a lot how we have good players. As James Knight recently pointed out, we know this because other clubs want to buy them for tens of millions of pounds. The problem with the defence in particular is that although it contains some good individual players, it doesn’t look like a cohesive backline. It doesn’t feel like we get any benefit from the continuity of them all having played for us for at least a couple of years.
Of course, our best defender was reported to be a striker on Saturday. Whether Wesley Fofana made the decision to withdraw his labour or Brendan Rodgers just decided his head wasn’t right, we had £80million worth of centre back sitting in the stands as Southampton carved through us.
We also had millions worth on the bench in the chiselled shape of Caglar Soyuncu and a further thirty pence worth not making the squad again despite briefly turning into Ronaldinho in training. So it was Daniel Amartey at the back. We all like Amartey. He’s a nice chap, he has a good song and remember that time he chucked the Chelsea pennant over his shoulder? That’ll never die. But there’s a chance our Premier League status will expire if he continues to be our best option at centre back.
In Football Manager mode, the £80million or so we may imminently get for Fofana would go a long way. Nottingham Forest have bought an entire squad with less than double that. Back in reality, even if it does arrive it’s hard to envisage us spending it wisely.
Elite tweets
My favourite part of the matchday experience these days, in the absence of any vague chance of winning a match, is scrolling through the Twitter thread of BBC Radio Leicester’s post-match Brendan Rodgers interview until I get to the massive ratio.
After the Brentford game, there were 8 quote tweets on the first post in the thread, none on the second, 8 on the third - and 93 on the fourth, which was this…
The problem with that one being that the fatigue kicked in, the players tired a bit and Rodgers, in the first Premier League game he’s been able to make five substitutions, made one. And a terrible one at that.
After the Arsenal game, the quote tweet numbers were 10, then 3, then 95 for this gem…
Who were these players, Twitter wanted to know. Because it seemed to us like the majority of the squad has been around for a good few years now.
After the Southampton game, I didn’t think we were going to get there.
8, 8, 9…
The referee only blew the final whistle four hours ago.
5, 1, 4…
Perhaps he didn’t say anything ridiculous this time.
36.
Bingo.
As one or two people pointed out, perhaps we’re old-school and measure the success of our team using points and league tables rather than how many times our head of recruitment gets Fabrizio Romano all hot under the collar.
Hang about, did you say ‘our head of recruitment’?
I have a conspiracy theory. Southampton have only one contracted player: James Ward-Prowse. The others are all on some kind of staff bank.
This time it felt like JWP had brought some nephews with him. Indeed, Southampton’s starting eleven was the youngest Premier League lineup named by any club since May 2017. Despite their lack of experience, not being used to the level and all that, they managed to contain our efforts fairly well for nearly an hour, up until Maddison’s excellent free-kick.
Unfortunately, the visitors then started bringing on some adults, including former Oadby Town striker Che Adams (no goals since February). Our brave boys crumbled in the face of such vast experience at the level and of course the no-goals-for-six-months guy scored twice.
Two of Southampton’s new children - the 20-year-old goalkeeper Gavin Bazunu and 18-year-old midfielder Romeo Lavia - were signed from Manchester City, whose Head of Youth Recruitment, Joe Shields, also left to join Southampton this summer. Shields took up the Head of Senior Recruitment position at St Mary’s vacated by Martyn Glover - currently on gardening leave before he joins Leicester City the day after the transfer window closes.
Are we still that well-run club that’s the envy of most of the Premier League?
The blame game
Blindly flailing about for a scapegoat like Daniel Amartey looking for a passing option, most fans would probably have been happy to settle on Fofana before Rodgers decided to try to speak for us.
The manager certainly made some more in-game mistakes to go with his post-game faux pas. It was alarming how often Kyle Walker-Peters, perhaps the one Southampton defender we should have signed, was allowed the freedom of Leicester in the final half hour. Eventually, that resulted in the winning goal.
But regardless of individual or tactical errors, there’s a bigger issue. Brentford and Southampton have had an hour of superiority between them and managed to turn that into four goals. We have just three to show for the two hours of dominance we’ve managed across both games. As the Leicester Mercury’s Jordan Blackwell has pointed out before, when Leicester’s players play as Rodgers wants them to, they don’t often win. We don’t look like scoring enough and we certainly look like conceding at least two goals every game.
Something significant has to change, and maybe that’s the manager.
Where do we go from here?
Stockport.
But no, really, where do we go from here? With all disrespect to Southampton, because there hasn’t been enough already, if we can’t compete as soon as a team we beat 4-1 three games ago decides to start trying then who will we beat?
I can’t even rouse a “to go to Chelsea and win would be so Leicester City”.
We’ve got big problems. Beating Southampton would at least have been a sticking plaster. As it is, we head towards both Stamford Bridge and the close of the transfer window in seriously ill health.
