Hazzetta dello Sport: Villains and Saints
The Championship demands endurance and Harry Gregory is meeting the requirements with another preview, looking at the visiting Saints and a few villains for the latest edition of the Hazzetta.
At the time of writing, wasn’t that weekend fun? Three points for City deriving from the grittier side of the game to a chorus of noise in the final moments. Southampton’s promotion bid took a huge blow as Cardiff came up trumps with a second last minute winner to help us again.
Finally, Coventry had their cup hopes dashed in a penalty shoot-out loss to take home the ‘We were louder/we stayed after the final whistle/proud of the lads’ trophy.
A different LCFC
The range of emotions experienced over those three games; we will not go into detail. The Leicester City goal had a charmed life as Hamza Choudhury and Mads Hermansen combined to deny West Brom a second, a third, a fourth and a fifth goal. In a perverse way, there were parts of the performance which you desperately want to see from your side when fighting for promotion. The willingness to get the job done at the forefront of that. Equally, there were frightening parts of it.
Carlos Corberan tactically seemed to have us – not solely going for the deep line tactics of say Plymouth Argyle but a more progressive style which used a hybrid defensive four into a five and implemented a false nine. Our pressing pattern went man for man and one of the results of this was Harry Winks leaving the centre of the pitch. Quite often this left a huge gap between midfield and defence – the area that an opposition no. 10 typically occupies, was left largely unpoliced.
We have firmly hit the voyeuristic period of watching other teams hoping results could go our way. Two victories for Leicester City are needed and over the course of the next week, there’s three chances that could be reduced to just needing one. Leeds’ trip to Middlesbrough is followed up on Friday by them travelling to QPR. Both oppositions, as we know very well, can catch you cold and have the tools to deny six points from two games.
We thought that there may not be enough time in between games to have a righteous moan about an action that Leicester City FC have taken. Ahhh… yeah.
At the time of 9.10pm on a Sunday night, they released details of a season ticket increase and a charge for the use of a physical season ticket card. Quite aware that you can’t build a buzz of criticism when it slips out whilst everyone is brewing their Horlicks and watching Midsomer Murders.
Deflating the mood
The increase in season ticket prices was somewhat expected. 5% compared to the existing inflation rate of 3.2% seems high though. Most fans are intelligent enough to understand that the increases in cost-of-living affect the wages of those who manage and staff a stadium. Hold that thought, however.
It is the killer addition of a £25 charge to have a physical card which hits you in the guts. From my dealings with the digital tickets, they are downright inconsistent in their operation and require people to have their phone at the most up to date model and software. Hence a reluctance to get on board with using them.
The obvious point as well is that there are extremes of age demographic which simply don’t have the experience of using such options. To combat this Over 65s, Under 12s and persons with a disability are exempt. If you are 63, suck it, you are paying for it. The age cut-off seems a back-handed compliment.
When given the choice, just 1,600 season ticket holders selected digital tickets meaning 21,400 season ticket holders face a £25 charge. A total of circa £500k incoming. I am at loss to think why it is £25?
It currently costs £10 to replace your card when lost. All those season ticket holders have a physical card that doesn’t need replacing. A quick search online tells me Watford and Bradford City, who are introducing digital tickets this season, are leaving the card in situ out of choice or charging a more reasonable £5 for it. How can Bradford City afford that position?
The biggest personal anger for me is the line of ‘General Admission Season Ticket renewals will therefore be subject to a five per cent increase for the 2024/25 season – only the Club’s second increase in the last 10 seasons’. That’s unbelievable spin that Shane Warne would be proud of. If you’d used the line that this is our only season of Championship football in the last 10 seasons, it’s not quite the winning turn of phrase it appears.
It’s the second increase in four seasons. In 2021/22, my season ticket in the Kop with a physical card ticket was priced £415 – this was raised in 22/23 to £435 at an increase of 4.8% and then next season goes to £457 – an increase of 5%. Interestingly though if we do the like for like comparison with a physical card ticket, my season ticket costs £483 – we have season to season increase of 11%. If we use the same logic of 2021 to the forthcoming season, it’s an increase of 15%.
Shake it up for the Saints?
On the eve of Saturday’s game, Maresca mentioned three players may miss the game (KDH, Pereira and Vardy) and two of them played. However, the decision to rest Ricardo who was fit enough to be on the bench appeared a major sub-plot victory. Tuesday night, he should be fit and ready to start. Vardy will most likely be swapped for Patson Daka whom I simply don’t know what to expect from.
Interestingly Russell Martin, or Brussel as known by some, has hinted that the Saints team might have a reshuffle given their congested fixture list and the demising chances of automatic promotion. I quote ‘’We also have other guys that need to get on the pitch and stake a claim now for the final stages of the season, so we'll have to wait and see."
They were incredibly unfortunate against Cardiff in a game of striking similarities to ours at Leeds. They missed a shedload of chances and then both goals had some fortune involved. Both contained deflections to assist and would exasperate any fan.
They have been impressive in recent fixtures; when their system works it has similarities to ‘Enzoball’ but at a quicker pace. Adam Armstrong plays an inside left forward role cutting in while Che Adams looks to come deeper, bringing a defender out of the back line and then using the departed space.
Their weakness has a similarity to us. They can expose part players on the transition. Two centre-backs, often the deepest players, have no protection. There is a pattern of failing to close shots on the 18-yard box. It will be a battle of the press – who can achieve that the best will win this game.
To finish with a word for the support in LE2, there’s been moments in recent home games where it appears in sync. An acceptance to leave your groans at the turnstile and support the players. This was none more so evident from eighty minutes onwards as the Foxes tired on Saturday, the noise was elevated to become a distraction. It’s going to need that understanding again. The club calling upon fans being loud on Friday night only to throw something hugely dividing into the ether on Sunday evening.
We don’t want to see the club organisational operation as an enemy, but they’ve made it so easy to call out. They rely on the fanbase being overtly split. Collectively everyone needs to be united.
