Playtime’s over: Wolves 0 Leicester City 4 (23 October 2022)
via @chloe_d1306
Sunday’s trip to the Black Country may well have produced the canonical Leicester performance. A backs-to-the-wall victory where Youri Tielemans scored a screamer and James Maddison popped one in from outside the box.
But the final flourish came from Jamie Vardy. Seen downing a can of Red Bull before entering the arena, Leicester’s main man came on, scored, and celebrated by waving off the home fans as they headed for the exits.
The Good Leicester was always able to rattle entire clubs, not just the fans in the ground. Managers getting the boot after the indignity of losing to Leicester is a well-trodden path in Premier League history. The 2022 vintage may well have seen off two more in the space of four days. Jesse Marsch is hanging by a thread and, after Sunday, Wolves are primed to take the unprecedented step of sacking a caretaker manager.
At one stage in this encounter, Leicester were losing the shot battle 21-4 and led the game 4-0. It was a classic smash and grab, the likes of which we saw the title winning side pull off again and again.
Are we back?
Wout wout
Throughout the summer and into September, Brendan Rodgers told us over and over again how vital new signings are to refreshing the team. This became an ever more annoying refrain from the manager as his side slipped to limp defeat after limp defeat.
Right now it seems like he might have been right. Wout Faes’ arrival has transformed the defence. While Jonny Evans is the sort of ageing leader who organises battles from 50 miles behind the front line, Faes energetically marches out at the head of his troops. He stood up to Diego Costa and inspired the entire left side of Leicester’s defence to snuff out any threat from Adama Traore.
Without Kasper Schmeichel, there was a gaping personality vacuum in the defensive line. Faes is going to catch a few strays: he made a mistake at Bournemouth and was caught out early a couple of times here, but the knock-on effect of his playing style is that everyone else has become far more aggressive too. James Justin, in particular, has improved dramatically next to Faes and that showed at Molineux.
Led by Faes getting stuck in, the big positive of the last week has been how confidence has slowly come back to the team. They were tentative and edgy against Palace, more assertive against Leeds, and then at Wolves both Harvey Barnes and Vardy were elaborately mugging off the home end after slotting past Jose Sa.
Are you Leicester in disguise?
It is obviously not sustainable to be outshot 5:1 and win too many times. But the numbers don’t tell the whole story of this game. Wolves had two spells of dominance at the start of each half where they accumulated most of those shots. After that, they had a lot of possession without ever looking like scoring. Sound familiar?
What Leicester ran into here was a team that makes the exact same mistakes we do. Wolves were behind early and completely overcommitted men forward for the remaining 80 minutes. It’s hardly surprising that one team scores from every shot if the other gives them 20 yards of space to shoot every time.
I dread to think what I’d have been writing about Danny Ward if the situation was reversed. Sa failed to make a save, was beaten at his near post for Maddison’s strike, and almost gave up a hilarious goal to Patson Daka after taking too long to clear a backpass. Wolves gave the ball away in defence over and over again. Leicester only had four shots but had chances on the break to make it even worse.
The big difference over the last few games compared to the first couple of months is that Leicester haven’t left Ward and the centre backs exposed in the way Wolves did on Sunday. It’s near enough guaranteed that every time Daniel Amartey plays he will gift the opposition a huge chance. In recent weeks, someone - Faes, Tielemans, or Ward - has stepped up to bail him out.
We should credit Rodgers and our wacky Welshman in goal for this. The system is better because it’s keeping more bodies back to protect us from ourselves and the goalkeeper has made saves when needed. The one time Wolves created a clear-cut chance from open play, Ward pushed away Daniel Podence’s effort. It’s almost like watching a real team!
The week ahead
All of this is likely to come crashing down on Saturday lunchtime, when Manchester City visit the King Power. Leicester’s record against the Sky Six so far is miserable - four defeats out of four - with zero examples of looking like we might get a result. We remain sceptical about whether the defensive improvements can hold up against a transition from the ghost of Diego Costa to Erling Haaland.
With that said, this is a good time to be playing any team that’s in Europe. We have a free week ahead of us, while Manchester City go to Dortmund on Tuesday. The squad is starting to look stronger: Vardy has his first goal of the season, Dennis Praet is on cloud nine after another impact sub performance, and Wilfred Ndidi could return to the fold on Saturday.
Most importantly, the vibes are a lot better than a fortnight ago. Suddenly, Leicester are only a few points behind early season darlings like Brighton and Brentford. There probably won’t be any Zak Rodgers birthday cakes in the pipeline this time around.
