Leicester City 2 Wolves 1: Mind and senses purified
Two moments either side of these frantic ninety nine minutes will stay with me for a long time.
The first came at 2pm when the team news was announced. The second came at around 5pm when an afternoon of high tension was over and there was a gigantic release all across Filbert Way.
Wacky Races
In the week leading up to this game there had been a rare consensus among fans about who we wanted to see in the starting eleven. And given the nature of the task ahead, it felt like the sooner Dean Smith and co settled on the best eleven, the more chance we’ll have of staying up.
This wasn’t our best eleven. For one thing, Smith had to plug the massive gaps left by the absences of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes. How he chose to do it prompted that first memorable moment, when I looked at the lineup and, like many others, initially just saw a list of names.
It broke a few rules. Firstly, you probably only want one nutcase in your back four. You might find room for two. We went for three. Secondly, you probably only want one striker. You might find room for two. We went for three. Thirdly, you probably don’t want to end up with Soumare and Tielemans in a midfield two. But that’s what Dean Smith picked and, in the absence of anything else to hang our hopes upon, we settled on bringing the chaos.
If we were intrigued to see what these eleven names looked like as a functioning team on the pitch, it was soon clear they had been set up in an even more attacking way than we’d envisaged. With Patson Daka pushed up against the defensive line on the left and Tete doing the same on the right, our formation looked a lot like 2-4-4.
So the Wacky Races ensued. Leicester flew off the start line, but then bits started falling off the car while various personnel were frantically trying to keep everything on the right track. None of it made much sense, but neither did the laboured football we’ve been playing for most of this season.
We’ve talked a lot about vibes over the past few months. Bad ones. Here we were a car running purely on vibes. Rumbling along on the energy of new faces to believe in, desperation from the stands to finally enjoy a Saturday evening.
GOAT goal - or the next best thing
Before we got to that part, we had to first endure the mandatory concession of a ridiculous goal. We haven’t managed to get through a game without gifting the opposition a goal for weeks but at least we got it out of the way early here.
Whether it was the hangover of a Rodgers goal to concede or this is just baked into our players’ DNA now is up for debate. Nobody was blaming Dean Smith for it though, which probably helped the vibes overall.
Wolves, for they were also on the pitch, then took control. They were neat and tidy in their buildup and they should have forced a second goal. Then they did a Leicester. They overstretched themselves, left some space for a counter attack and we, to everyone’s huge relief, capitalised.
Jamie Vardy’s only Premier League goal this season came against Wolves. While he didn’t double his tally here, he did the next best thing and ran it back to 2016 to dart in behind the back four and lure a penalty out of Jose Sa.
Kelechi Iheanacho, who had picked up some good positions in the number ten role amid the chaos, dispatched it. As the celebrations died down, realisation dawned. We’d actually equalised in a game. It really doesn’t happen very often.
At half time, Vardy succumbed to the knock he picked up when winning the penalty. He was replaced by Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and the team began to look a little more sensible.
Cags to riches
At this point we have to give you what you’ve been waiting for - a massive shout out to Caglar Soyuncu. Last season it felt like he buckled under the pressure of being the senior centre back.
Recalled from the gulags, in this game he looked like a club legend. In fact, he looked a bit like John Terry. Towering headers, sharp interceptions, a strangely reassuring figure quite at odds with the jittery presence he was last season.
Exactly what’s happened with him this season will probably remain one of the club’s enduring mysteries. It seems like the kind of footnote you often get during a relegation season. I can imagine tuning into an episode of the Premier League Years and hearing Martin Tyler tell us about how Leicester had one of the worst defences in the league while an accomplished international centre-back sat on the bench the entire time.
Soumare loving
For me, the Boubakary Soumare situation is less to do with Rodgers. I was ready to bin Soumare after the Blackburn fiasco. Eighteen months after arriving, he seemingly hadn’t adapted to the pace and urgency of the Premier League and this feeling sank to new depths when he couldn’t cope with a game against Championship opposition.
I’ll hold my hands up. Like many, I wanted Mendy in the side. My shoulders slump when I see Soumare in the team. I picture him casually jogging back while the opposition break at pace, or getting caught in possession on the half-turn. However, he’s also like a battery-operated toy that suddenly bursts into life at random moments and scares the hell out of everyone.
Smith had seen it in training and if he can coax it out of him then we’re back to thinking there’s a player there. Someone stuck some batteries in him at half time and he roared into existence, channelling prime Yaya Toure and continually powering his way through a wide-eyed Wolves midfield.
A Soumare burst, sirens blaring and traffic parting, was what won us the game. A quick exchange of passes and a brilliant release to the overlapping Kristiansen and we were away. One full-back found the other. The ball found the back of the net. The stadium found a feeling that was beginning to seem like something from the glorious past.
Smith immediately made a decisive substitution, bringing on Dennis Praet for Tete to shore up one side of the pitch while Dewsbury-Hall did the same on the other. We still could have conceded - Daniel Iversen made a superb flying stop from a Ruben Neves free kick and Max Kilman headed over from a corner. The only thing that mattered is that we didn’t. When the final whistle arrived, it was a thing of joy.
He’s got his strong beliefs
I’d become miserably accustomed to filing out of the ground in silence as the opposition go to celebrate with the travelling supporters. It was already surreal to see the stands still populated beyond the 85th minute. This time, people actually stayed for the players’ lap off the pitch.
Then the PA system started playing Gala’s Freed From Desire. Standard football fare, but not the kind of upbeat song we’ve been used to hearing after home games for some time. There’s a bit in it after the singalong parts when the vocals drop away and it just pumps out this refrain that has a momentum all of its own. I associate it with being at Wembley last summer to see the Lionesses win the Euros. Now I also associate it with soaking up Leicester City fans celebrating a long-awaited win.
Who knows whether we’ll be celebrating again on Filbert Way after the final whistle at the end of May. For now let’s just enjoy this feeling. It’s been too long.
