10 words to describe how I’ve felt watching Leicester City so far this season
Leicester City have opened the season with 4 wins out of 4. It feels good, but it’s also stirring all sorts of emotions.
Just when you thought Leicester City, surely one of the most emotionally taxing football clubs in the world over the past 30 years, were going to settle down and give us a serene cruise back to the big time.
Just when you thought it was safe to go back down Filbert Way.
Just when you thought we’d stepped off the emotional rollercoaster.
Tense. Optimistic. Frustrated. Hopeful. Bored. Amazed. Irritated. Reassured. Angry. Euphoric.
I could already use all of these words to describe how I’ve felt so far this season. Only 43 games to go.
In fact, if we’re talking bald Italians then forget Enzo Maresca - I’ve been more like Gianni Infantino during the first few games.
Today I feel like an angry old man. Today I feel like a scarf-waving ultra. Today I feel like a tactics YouTuber. Today I feel like an 8-year-old getting the badge in while goading the away end.
Maresca has broken me and I don’t know who I am or what to think any more. These first two home games in particular have produced the strangest mix of emotions I can remember as a Leicester fan.
I filed up Raw Dykes Road on Saturday afternoon after watching our fourth victory in a row feeling euphoric but also irritated. This is why I have some sympathy for those getting it in the neck at the moment for being unappreciative of the 100% record. It’s just not that simple.
Let’s face it, almost everybody in the stadium is within earshot of someone who isn’t enjoying this football one bit and is making sure everyone around them knows it. There’s definitely one in the row behind me and I’m still trying to work him out. He was apoplectic for long periods last Saturday, but it’s ambiguous whether that’s about the style of play, the way the players are implementing it or simply the fact they earn tens of thousands of pounds a week. Probably all of the above.
Either way, he left bang on 80 minutes and missed the 92nd minute goal that rendered every emotion other than the ecstasy of a late winner largely redundant.
It was clear from the social media platform formerly known as Twitter that there are a lot of these people dotted around the ground so, in answer to the backlash they’re getting, this is partly my attempt to understand where they’re coming from. Because I can identify with the emotional flux.
Anger and frustration
Let’s start with what I’ve felt for most of the two second halves of the home games so far. The main reason isn’t so much what’s happening on the pitch as a delayed reaction to what happened there last season, and what still can’t be happening there now.
We’re trying to play possession football with a squad built over several years by and for a manager who plays possession football, and only a handful of those are any good at it. So about an hour into the season, my primary thought was how ridiculous it was we haven’t signed a decent right winger for so long.
This is because creativity remains a long-term issue which has been masked by the individual brilliance of James Maddison and Harvey Barnes. Any sensible club would have had some other young attacking players to step into the breach when Maddison and Barnes left. Maresca, accustomed to the phalanx of talent at Manchester City’s disposal, must find it incredible that he’s having to sign a whole new complement of creative players from scratch.
That’s before you get to the frustration of watching Everton getting beaten every week when we should still be there making the Premier League more competitive than they are. What a waste.
Boredom and irritation
I think Enzo Maresca’s fantastic. Overall, I’m enjoying the style of play. I’m on board with the whole thing. But we can still acknowledge some of it can be pretty boring and it will take some getting used to.
The second half of the Cardiff game was largely dull, because we have such commitment to the system already (a good thing) that we’re not showing the kind of urgency you’d normally expect in certain situations (again, not a bad thing given the evidence of the results).
The irritation comes because the commitment to the system is so strong that we occasionally play unnecessary passes and give the ball away. This was always going to happen. We’re two games in. We haven’t really got the personnel to do what we’re doing but we’re making the best of it.
But it’s momentarily difficult as a supporter to maintain long-term commitment to a years-long grand vision when you’re watching inferior opposition players running clean through on goal like it’s 2022 all over again.
Tension and reassurance
Perhaps the most interesting sensation so far has been to see players you’ve never heard of streaking away from our defence and shanking their shot miles wide.
It’s happened in both home games so far and, despite the initial horror and the tightening of the stomach, it actually eases the mind. It’s a reminder we’re not facing Mo Salah or Erling Haaland any more, when that situation equals goal - particularly when we had a goalkeeper who faced one-on-ones like he was allergic to footballs.
Then play resumes and brings reassurance. There have been absolutely stunning passages in these opening encounters. Possibly the best two examples so far have been a criss-crossed one-touch passing move that ended in Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall picking the wrong option after ten minutes against Coventry and the move that took the ball from just to the right of our goal and culminated in a Callum Doyle shot touched wide in the second half against Cardiff.
After the first one, I wanted to stand and applaud. After the second one, which I’d started by internally agreeing with Angry Man behind me that we should just hoof it out, I was quietly laughing at his attempts to vocalise acceptance that the team had instead constructed something beautiful.
It may be possession football but I simply don’t buy the idea this is an extension of the Brendan Rodgers philosophy. Essentially, you can see what we’re trying to do. I’d forgotten what that feels like. Perhaps it’s also partly because Maresca talks more openly and clearly about an idea, a plan, a vision we’re working towards. There may still be question marks over the club as a whole but the team feels in safe hands.
Optimism and amazement
Optimism is a strange one. I gave up optimism when I thought we’d beat Arsenal at home in the title-winning season and instead got whacked 5-2. Since then I’ve assumed we’ll lose every week and sometimes I get pleasantly surprised. I might have to recalibrate this approach a bit this season, for when we play teams like… yeah, right. I’m not falling into that trap.
But I am amazed at the football we’re already seeing. Amazed to see us going until the last minute and flooding the box with blue shirts like we did on Saturday. If Dewsbury-Hall’s double on the opening day was reminiscent of Andy King’s Championship exploits then Cesare Casadei’s swipe into the roof of the net reminded me of another King goal - the winner against West Ham that sparked the greatest escape.
The amazement largely stems from our fitness levels, which we were readying ourselves to be pretty poor given a chaotic pre-season. They’re not. They look fine. They look great, even, and we’re clearly tiring our opponents. My favourite thing about having a season ticket is when we lay siege to the opposition goal to get a late equaliser or winner at the Kop end. After barely any sign of that for months, we’ve seen it twice in two games and it’s been fantastic to experience.
Euphoria and hope
Strip everything else away and you’re in it for moments like those two late winners. The dancing down the rows vacated by people who either need to catch trains or have given up on a team you should no longer give up on. Players racing in every direction, the clenched fists, the group hugs, the high-fives with Filbert.
Although I’m not situated in that corner of the ground, I thought it was great that both Dewsbury-Hall and Casadei headed for the Union FS section to celebrate their goals, because that area is clearly driving the atmosphere and it felt like acknowledgement of their efforts.
This team is beginning to feel like Leicester City again, despite playing football unlike anything we’ve seen before, because they’re going to the end and giving us hope, alongside a whole range of emotions.
