Leicester City 2 Stoke City 0: Doing it on a warm October afternoon against Stoke
Leicester City’s 2-0 win over Stoke City sees Enzo Maresca’s men at the top of the Championship heading into the international break. The gap to third place is now ten points - so are we allowed to be happy about it?
Five minutes from the end of Leicester City’s latest routine win, Abdul Fatawu was substituted. Fatawu was on the far side of the pitch and walked round the Kop end of the King Power Stadium to a slow-moving wave of applause.
Less than a quarter into the season, opposition fans and even managers are already acting as though this entire season is one big lap of honour for Leicester. The acclaim given to Fatawu had a different tone though.
This wasn’t complacency, despite ten minutes in total including injury time remaining with a two-goal lead. This was a grateful home crowd showing appreciation to a teenager who is working hard to adapt to a new country, working hard to learn a challenging new style of play and working hard for his team-mates in a demanding environment.
We recognise hard work when we see it and, as a result, Leicester fans are really falling for this team with its blend of exciting new faces, club legends and renewed, reinvented, reinvigorated Danish centre-backs.
90% of the law
After 20 minutes, a graphic had appeared on the big screens at either end of the ground showing that Leicester had enjoyed 90% of the possession. There was an audible hum from the crowd.
Possession breaking the 90% mark is not something you see very often, although it wouldn’t have felt new to Enzo Maresca. Manchester City achieved it in a 15-minute spell towards the end of the Manchester derby last year.
It’s not quite as prestigious or memorable to do it on a balmy October afternoon against Stoke, but you can only beat what’s in front of you. And Stoke were certainly in front of us.
After 60 minutes, the Stoke fans started singing “we’ve got the ball” every time they won possession. The score was still only 1-0 but the result already felt a foregone conclusion.
We’re only 11 games into the season and we’re already at the stage where opposition teams look beaten when they step onto the pitch. Opposing managers’ post-match interviews are often a sorry affair. Stoke manager Alex Neil’s comments were reminiscent of the kind of thing you hear from teams visiting the Etihad.
"Our game plan was to come here, frustrate and try keep Leicester at arms length really.
"We wanted to get to the late embers of the game and see if we could have a little bit of a go.
"The first goal changed the dynamic of the game. We then kept it going until the 60th minute, then when we decided to have a go.
"We discussed that, it was always going to be the game plan.
"You can see why teams come here and don't do that, because they have very quick players, they are good, they are technical, they move the ball.”
If this was a team having a go, I can’t wait to see one put eleven men behind the ball for 90 minutes.
Attack against defence
The flipside of being a budget Manchester City is that you’re watching what can feel like an entirely different sport. Football is at its best when it’s end to end. This was just end. It was attack against defence.
On one hand, there’s no real glory in it because we have the best players, the best manager and the best system.
On the other hand, yeah right. Southampton played a similar way at home to Rotherham, had 80% possession, 22 shots to 4, 10 on target to 2… and drew 1-1.
It can happen. It happened against Hull, when Leicester had two-thirds of the ball and three-quarters of the shots. But so far that’s been the one-off because this Leicester City side are just too good for the Championship. We shouldn’t be here and now we’re showing why.
There wasn’t a huge amount to write home about in this game, despite the supposed peril of making so many changes. Vestergaard did his customary Beckenbauer impression. Harry Souttar stepped in seamlessly. Yunus Akgun was bright and lively.
The two highlights were, unsurprisingly, the two Leicester goals. The first was a masterclass in how to cut through massed ranks of defenders, finished expertly by Kelechi Iheanacho. The second was a delightful one-touch move that Jamie Vardy ended by tapping the ball into the net before getting reacquainted with the Stoke fans.
There should have been more, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Wilfred Ndidi both going close to what would have been exhibition goals towards the end. But one is usually enough these days. Two would have been greedy.
Ups and downs
And so another set of opposition fans cry foul at parachute payments and the apparent inevitability of Leicester City’s promotion.
But when we set up The Fosse Way 15 months ago, we didn’t realise we’d spend the first year bemoaning the way our football club was sleepwalking to disaster. Forgive us for revelling in the glorious resurrection.
After we slipped into the third tier at the Britannia Stadium in 2008, a Stoke fan helpfully gave us directions home - via Crewe, Hereford, Southend, Stockport…
That was a serious fall from grace for a team that shouldn’t have been relegated, closely followed by a wonderful year winning every week under new management. Sound familiar? Going down can have its upsides.
