Three games in: do Leicester City fans now feel more or less confident of staying up?
With three games and one transfer window down, should Leicester City fans be feeling more or less confident about Premier League survival than they did before the season kicked off?
More, more, more
James Knight
More. Before the season I feared the worst: that we were totally ill-equipped to compete at this level. Going into that first game against Spurs our squad was well short of where it needed to be, and it was difficult to project what we would look like once the shooting started. It's easy to forget now, but that first half of the first game was brutal and we got lucky to escape without a hammering.
What I think we have shown since then, and some of our transfer business has been directed towards this, is that our floor is higher than I feared. The team has shown enough in patches, against three good teams, to suggest that we can be competitive. Steve Cooper has got the team pretty well organised, and he's hardly had anything to work with going forward until the last week.
I don't know that it necessarily translates into staying up, because the fundamental question of the transfer window was whether we could add enough firepower and creativity to compete at this level. The late flurry helped, but ultimately I don't think we've succeeded in doing that. So it might be a doomed struggle, but at least now I think we have a puncher's chance of making it.
Big lawyer energy
Iain Wright
It's simply the way of things at The Fosse Way. The editors pose a question and by the time the deadline for submission is reached, the landscape has completely changed. Just one normal season, month, week, day would be nice, LCFC!
The simple answer to the question posed is that I'm a lot more confident today (Wednesday) than I was when having my tea on Tuesday due to the efforts of my POTS prediction Super Nick De Marco. Although, by the time this goes out, that may well have changed again.
Whisper it quietly, but I think we've actually (although a tad belatedly) done okay in the transfer window. Yes, I'd have liked to have seen more activity in the departure lounge with the likes of Soumaré, Ward, Iversen etc departing, but incomings look, well, okay I think.
Yes, it's a bit galling to be improving players for Brighton (Buonanotte). It's a bit odd loaning from Crystal Palace (Edouard), and signing older players like De Cordova-Reid and Ayew isn't generally how Premier League teams operate, but this season was always about getting to 17th or higher by the end of matchday 38.
At the other end of the scale, adding Skipp, Okoli and El Khannouss genuinely improves the team and in the case of the latter, he’s a really exciting signing. I think we have a good mix of experience and youthful effervescence across the squad.
The task now is for Steve Cooper to blend that into a team with a coherent system. Once again, LCFC haven't helped the manager prepare for the season due to the delays in the transfers and a very low-key, cobbled together pre-season. I don't think we've looked as sharp as we need to be and it's abundantly clear that there is a lot of work to be done attacking wise. We simply haven't developed patterns, relationships and clever plans going forward at this point.
However, now the squad is set, hopefully Cooper will be able to develop things to make us a lot more threatening in attack.
We came back well against Tottenham. Getting anything when losing at half time became as rare as hen's teeth in the last year or so of Brendan Rodgers, so to get that point was good.
We were sadly off the pace at Fulham (reasons above I believe) and the Villa game was a bit of an enigma. Cooper picked a team to be solid defensively whilst simultaneously seemingly instructing them to push on and use Ndidi as much as possible. Last 20 minutes, once the team was more balanced, we looked okay.
The big tests are on the horizon, we need that first win asap and then hopefully we can push on.
Same but different
Helen Thompson
I’m a fairly optimistic fan but I prefer my cynical shot of realism these days to stop any sucker punch pain. I didn’t particularly fancy us to stay up before the last round of financial issues and Enzo deciding to jump ship at least six months earlier than expected. I don’t really feel wildly more optimistic based on the avoidance of points deduction. I do feel a nagging sense of hope though.
Is it a bit mad to say that I have enjoyed this start to the season more than expected? I can’t rejoice in the murkiness of our legal ‘victory’ that others can but hopefully it’s one less thing weighing down on Cooper and the player. It should lift the mood. And this is a squad who don’t look like the mood or effort is a challenge.
Cooper would have preferred a more organised, fast paced transfer window but it does feel like we got the various positions we wanted, just not the exact personnel. It’s been a mixed bag because Cooper already had his work cut out to implement a different style, to an extent, and to discover a team that can give us the balance to pick up points. He hasn’t quite nailed it yet but with a new person joining pretty much every week in August, I’m willing to be patient.
What none of us knew, but had hoped for, pre-season was what we would get from this group of players. How would they present themselves? It feels like it’s been a little while since we had a team who looked like they could withstand some unexpected hardship and while just one point on the table maybe doesn’t reflect their efforts, to a man they’ve been outstanding for work rate, not letting heads drop and giving the fans something to cheer for.
In Leicester’s case a little hope is a dangerous thing but I’ve been pretty proud of the way we’ve set about and if Cooper can get the tinkering right, then hopefully we don’t need to worry about the low points record. Will we stay up?
The odds are so stacked against the promoted teams now but we don’t have to worry about amassing some points only to have them wiped out come March or April so maybe, just maybe.
Mostly, it’s nice to feel motivated to clap and sing the players off each game.
Forward thinking
David Bevan
Before the season started, my expectation was to finish bottom with a points deduction.
Now, it feels like there are six poor teams in the division and we’re currently top of that mini-league thanks to an unlikely point against Tottenham.
The season never pans out how you think it will from the first three games, so at least one of those six teams will improve significantly and at least one of the teams above us will tail off. Managers will change too - I’d be amazed if Russell Martin sees out the season. Regardless of possible changes to the status quo, I wouldn’t be surprised if the three relegated clubs are currently among these six.
With the threat of a points deduction for 2022/23 PSR lifted, it still remains to be seen what happens when the 2023/24 charges are dished out in December. We might be just about alright but there’s no point worrying about that yet either way.
The signings of Oliver Skipp and Bilal El Khannouss should give us more control in midfield. Without them, we looked like we were heading for an entirely reactive and defensive season. Now you can start to imagine games where we might be more proactive from the get-go, if Cooper proves himself to be braver than he’s shown up to now.
My main concern is similar to many fans - despite the fact we’ve scored in each of the three games so far (as many as Ipswich, Southampton and Everton combined), it’s hard to see where the goals we’ll need are going to come from.
I don’t think any of our players will hit double figures based on what I’ve seen so far. They don’t need to either. Brighton, Everton and Fulham all stayed up last season despite none of their players reaching double digits, let alone the fabled 20 goals.
But we’ll need a more consistent and earlier goal threat than we’ve had in the first three games.
