Swansea City 1 Leicester City 3: Another step up the Marescalator
Another Monday morning basking in the glow of another winning Leicester City weekend. Becky Taylor made the marathon trip to Swansea to watch Enzoball conquer all again.
It’s been a record-breaking start for Enzo Maresca's men as beating Swansea 3-1 took us 5 points clear at the top with 33 points from a possible 36.
There feels a sense of inevitability about Championship away days for Leicester this season; we're going to get a result. We've already broken our record for consecutive away wins from the 2013-14 Championship-winning campaign.
It's hard not to come across as completely arrogant when talking about us and I took to Twitter for tips on how to help with this before it gets out of hand.
Even at 1-0 down it seemed like not one person in the away end had even considered we wouldn't score (and score again) to win the game. It's a completely alien concept that I'm not sure how to deal with.
Long old poke
We had a stop off in Porthcawl en route to Swansea; home to the poshest Aldi I've ever seen. It was a great success, we saw the sea and was the first time I've seen blue sky on a trip to Wales.
The rest of the sell-out away end, if they'd made it thanks to Storm Babet disruptions, had slim pickings around the ground for pre-match options.
In the ground there was a schooling in how to serve people as slow as humanly possible from the bar staff. It was painful viewing but a queue that had to be endured just to enjoy an AU Vodka can, purely because it was so random to be among the drink options in a concourse.
As stories of the failed and/or painful train journeys were discussed, the Swansea mascot walked around the pitch to classic jeers of 'What the fucking hell is that?' from City fans. Cyril the Swan is the saddest looking mascot I've ever seen.
I couldn't work out if they'd made his head droop down more just for our visit, to show how the Swansea players and fans were going to look after having to face this formidable Leicester side.
Full-backs on toast
Swansea manager Michael Duff proclaimed before the match that his Swansea team would go at Leicester, which to be fair they did, but even their deflected (but well-hit) goal came against the run of play.
We were getting in good positions but faltering with poor decision making. About 5 of those chances fell to Wilfred Ndidi, who forgot he is now prime David Silva, deciding to go for confused Bambi instead.
Swansea's right back Josh Key had a torrid afternoon. Every time Mavididi got the ball he had him on toast, again just the final ball preventing Stephy from adding to his stats.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall also running beyond, down that left side, had another very good game; he seems to be realising his role more each week.
The Vestergaard redemption tour
There was a moment where it felt like it was going to be 'one of those days' as chances went begging. So it was time for a goal with a bit of luck to find its way in and start the turn around.
Jannik Vestergaard got his first of the season, scoring with his balls according to a few reports - they all count!
Maresca applauded Vestergaard’s professionalism to get the ball and go again for the win, but I'm not sure if he still just expects pelters from Leicester fans that he didn't want to stand in front of us to celebrate.
If a whole away end singing his name doesn't show the turn around for Jannik in a short 12 games, someone having 'Vestergoat - 23' printed on their shirt surely does. While it made me feel slightly sick that someone had got that printed, I had to laugh.
National anthem bingo
I don't want to call football fans predictable but we'd discussed at what minute we would sing GSTK to wind up the Swansea contingent.
Although cries of 'En-ger-land' were almost immediate, it was a late one for the national anthem, only popping up at the start of the second half.
Maybe our players needed the comfort of this to step it up on the pitch.
It wasn't the best showing for noise in the away end - we are almost mirroring the style of play. Steady all the way through, flashes of brilliance but even when not fully on it, still clearly better than the opposition.
Fatawu and Keldog madness
Swansea's change of shape did cause us some problems, notably Key who was far better in a more attacking position, but it was our African chaos creators who sealed another win on the road.
Although it wasn't Abdul Fatawu's finest performance, he's always got some carnage in him and I was buzzing to see him bag his first goal. Getting dragged off before he'd even finished his celebrations felt like classic Enzo bringing him back down to earth.
It was the first time I thought Maresca was slow to make substitutions after the first. The classic Leicester pessimism was creeping back in, thinking that Swansea were going to nick an undeserved equaliser after we squandered golden chances to make it 3-1.
Ricky P had his blushes spared as Mads Hermansen saved the subsequent shot after Ricardo passed straight to a Swansea player 18 yards from goal.
He sorted himself out and played a delicious pass through to Kelechi Iheanacho who made no mistake scoring and amplifying the argument he's Leicester's best striker right now.
Kel and Fatawu's embrace at full-time as the team and fans celebrated the win together was a great moment - a continuation of the good vibes and connection that's been established.
Lucky
Post-match provided an additional highlight as a Swansea fan tweeted we scored 3 lucky goals and they can see why we are a Championship club.
Swansea is really far away, but it's a much nicer trip when it doesn't rain and you leave with 3 points. Hopefully that's our last trip there for a while (sorry, there’s that accidental arrogance again).
