3-0 to the Leicester boys: Liverpool 2 Leicester City 1 (30 December 2022)
I’m generally glad I was taken down to Filbert Street at an early age. There can’t be many better clubs to have supported over the past decade. And yet… there also can’t be many more frustrating clubs to support than Leicester City.
Seeing the team news for the trip to Anfield, particularly having sat through a shambles of a Boxing Day performance, I’d resigned myself to a heavy defeat prior to kickoff. I was certainly convinced we’d be two down inside ten minutes.
Instead, we were one up. And looking reasonably comfortable. So of course we score two own goals in the space of a few minutes and lose the game despite our players dominating the scoresheet.
There were a number of frustrating aspects here. In a shock move, Craig Pawson gave the big club at home the soft decisions. We didn’t carve out many clear chances but we did create a lot of threatening situations. That sounds like loser talk admittedly. Nevertheless, it felt like there was something in it for us.
Most frustratingly of all, while the scoreline mirrored the xG neither Mohamed Salah, having an off-night in front of a goal, or competition winner Darwin Nunez, having an off-season in front of goal, had to go to the trouble of putting the ball in the back of the net.
It all added up to another calamitous defeat, a fitting way for Leicester to end a year strewn with them - file this alongside Tottenham, Forest, Brighton and so on under: ridiculous ways to lose a football match.
Captain’s log
Captaincy should bring stability and reassurance. The armband shouldn’t have to be passed around like a tub of Quality Street. Wilfred Ndidi was the latest to try it on for size, with our club captain Jonny Evans in his usual place on the treatment table and vice-captain Marc Albrighton in his usual place on the bench.
How far down the pecking order is Ndidi? He’s certainly below Youri Tielemans and Jamie Vardy, also both on the bench. He’d probably be below Ricardo Pereira too if the Portuguese was fit.
This belies a vacuum of real leadership. Long gone are the days of Schmeichel, Morgan and Vardy supplying a reliable spine. This is the kind of thing that was worrying fans after such an insipid display in the first game after the World Cup. A reassuring start was especially important at Anfield.
Silencing the Kop
Now Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall has established himself as a Premier League player, it’s imperative he adds more goals and assists to his game. There probably weren’t too many Leicester fans confident in his finishing when he ran clean through the heart of the Liverpool defence and faced Alisson in front of the Kop after just 4 minutes.
KDH applied what was needed though, following neat touches from Harvey Barnes and Patson Daka, and suddenly we were into a shock lead. It was a deserved lead too on the balance of the first 10 or 20 minutes. We pressed further up the pitch than expected and it caught Liverpool out on several occasions. With better decision-making in the final third, we’d have added more.
The loss of Patson Daka to injury early in the game, to be replaced by Jamie Vardy, didn’t feel too much of a blow either. Daka had been poor against Newcastle and most fans were disappointed he kept his place in the starting lineup to face Liverpool. We were well set. And then…
Frank Sinclair with a bit more hair
You’re conditioned as a football fan to think of own goals as unlucky. Perhaps the second of Wout Faes’s unwanted double was unfortunate but the first was anything but. Danny Ward’s call was loud and clear as Trent Alexander-Arnold’s cross arrived from the right. Faes still made a desperate lunge for the ball when its trajectory was heading straight for the goalkeeper, regardless of the call.
The second was more forgivable but there was still a sense Faes could have been more prepared for the ball rebounding off the post. At least he didn’t score a third and have to take it home.
You don’t expect to win at places like Anfield - Leicester haven’t won there for more than 20 years - but you do want your players to make the bigger clubs work for their wins, especially away from home. It was particularly frustrating we didn’t make Nunez have to score a goal. Oh, to be able to spend £64million on a “nuisance”.
So Faes takes his place as one of only a handful of players to have scored two own goals in a single Premier League game. Another reason to be glad to see the back of 2022.
Mr Brightside
How quickly the good run of form prior to the World Cup was forgotten in the aftermath of such a disappointing defeat on Boxing Day. Suddenly you looked through the starting eleven and began to worry about the future. The only good players we have are halfway out the exit door, there’s no squad depth to speak of and we’re still in relegation danger as we head into 2023.
However, there were a few individual performances at Anfield that offered hope. Some of the worst offenders against Newcastle stood up to be counted when facing Liverpool. Boubakary Soumare and Luke Thomas had solid games, rarely looking out of place in individual battles against far more established opponents.
Mohamed Salah struggled to impose himself - not the first time that’s happened when he’s come up against Thomas. Soumare in particular stood out, adding defensive steel to his game.
It was also a night when KDH looked at home at the highest level. There are question marks over so many of our current starters - are they good enough for where we want to be? The hope is that Boxing Day was a blip and, despite two defeats in a row, this young side can gain confidence from a performance with many positives.
