Winning off the pitch, slow starts, wasted wingers: What’s surprised Leicester City fans most so far this season
With six games down, Steve Cooper under pressure and the club having clarity about a points deduction, what’s surprised Leicester City fans most about the season to date?
Fighting the law and winning
Becky Taylor
If I'm honest, I'm not surprised by too much so far this season, I expected it to be an all-timer, mainly painful, and that feels pretty accurate already.
The omission of Ricky P (and to a point Fatawu) or the Wilfred N'Bruyne assists tally would be top of the list for on the pitch surprises, it just has to be avoiding a points deduction as the biggest.
I've never been so certain of something happening than us getting a points deduction this season, and a big one at that. Other clubs seemed to cooperate and still get stung, yet here we were fighting it with what looked like a pretty toothless argument.
I actually laughed all evening when it was announced because it was so ridiculous.
Social media was flooded with details of our argument; focussing on the unforeseen relegation and unplanned sacking of Rodgers. It just cemented the thoughts that the club sleepwalked into relegation but also seemed a 'woe is me' approach that surely wouldn't hold up, how wrong we all were!
I kept my distance from the details, but do know there was more to it with loopholes and so on. I don't really believe they aren't still coming for us - the authorities cannot wait for the day they get us for something.
I'm sure they're holding grudges from 2002 and 2016, they don't want too many more Leicester Citys but we will just keep popping up to wind them up.
It's a huge surprise and potential saviour to our chances of staying up, but it does feel like the board get away with some of the negligence that got us into the bother in the first place.
Starting slow
Iain Wright
When we appointed Steve Cooper, I think we all knew there would be a different approach to his predecessor. Enzo was a meticulous details man, "football chess" he even called it. What he managed with getting us promoted was highly commendable.
But there were many occasions where the 'chess approach' ignored the fact that football is often about emotion, leaving us facing check-mate when the opposition or their supporters turned the heat up a notch.
In the Championship, eventually, our quality came through and we'll sadly never know if The Enzo Way would have worked in the big league.
Enzo leaving left the club with a big decision. Should we go down a similar route with a like-minded manager or look for someone more pragmatic with a more physical approach? We obviously went for the latter in Steve Cooper.
His previous body of work with the younger England age groups showed that his 'style' isn't necessarily limited to the rudimentary way he played at Forest, but what I did expect was a transition from Chess to something more akin to Battleships.
This has been my biggest surprise.
Let's leave to one side the style/plan argument for now - after a shambles of a pre-season, late work in the transfer market and an international break, I am willing to give him some benefit of the doubt (for now).
But what I did expect from a Cooper team was that we'd be 'up for it' from the first whistle, just as Forest were on the two occasions we faced them at the City Ground under him.
The slow starts have been a feature of the Leicester rollercoaster for a while now, but James Justin's comments after the Everton game were startling, firstly in their honesty but also in their content.
In a season where we're competing with about 6 other clubs, it really shouldn't come as a surprise to the players that one of those clubs might actually try hard when playing us. It smacks of the "we'll be absolutely fine" mentality which has plagued the club from top to bottom for a while.
It really is a surprise that a Steve Cooper team is struggling with being 'on it' from the off. Has the manager overlooked this? Do the players know what he wants? Do we still have a number of disengaged players draining energy from the group? I think we'll find out in the next 4 games.
Looking a gift horse in the mouth
David Bevan
It seems clear to me that any incoming manager this summer should have looked at Abdul Fatawu as an absolute gift of a player. He’s quick, he’s creative, he’s energetic, he’s got aerial ability, the fans love him - he gives that X factor that so many sides lack. Most of all, he can get you up the pitch and make things difficult for the opposition.
So the sidelining of Fatawu over the past few games has baffled me. Not in the sense that I don’t understand the rationale, more that I can’t see how anyone would think this is the best way forward.
Jordan Ayew clearly works hard, but it’s not going to translate to genuine goal threat and creativity.
It’s ironic that we’ve gone from the completely inflexible Maresca, whose plan worked, to a seemingly inflexible Cooper. We’re only six games in, so hopefully he’ll change tack soon. I don’t see any real evidence that this system is going to work for us, but remain willing to be convinced.
We know that Fatawu needs a strong guiding hand. That’s what Maresca offered, fine-tuning his predilection for shooting from distance and encouraging him to recycle possession when there was a greater threat elsewhere on the pitch.
And there have already been signs he’s gone astray a little, perhaps feeling more free under Cooper or letting the Premier League spotlight go to his head. He’s shot from his own half twice already this season.
But to drop him has been counterproductive, given he set up our goal against Tottenham and won the corner we scored from at Fulham.
We need to create more and we need to play our best players. Let’s see it.
