The Leicester supremacy: Wanting to watch and a winger to worship
Seven goals in the space of a few days has put criticism of Leicester City’s attack to one side for the time being. Here are some thoughts on the desire to watch this Leicester side, and one of the main men behind that feeling.
Wednesday, 4.30pm. My dad's mate's car loses all power on one of the main thoroughfares in Northampton town centre. I'd just finished a long, rambling sentence about how much I was looking forward to a curry at Mithaas on the Narborough Road and a routine victory over Millwall.
A passing police officer waves traffic either side of the stricken vehicle and directs us to the pavement. It's cold. The keys to my own car are in my bag which is locked in the powerless car’s boot. There have been times in the past when all of this would add up to a decision not to bother. Use it as an excuse to get some chips on the way home and watch the game on television.
But there was something enticing about the way our attack kicked into gear last Saturday against Plymouth, especially at the start of the second half. Something motivating about the win for Ipswich the evening before and the defeat for Leeds. Something stirring about the debate over crowd attendance, enthusiasm and atmosphere.
The police officer manages to retrieve my bag from the car boot. I stride the half hour home like one of those weird-looking marathon walkers, shovel down some food and set off to pick up my dad. An hour later, there are two of us doing the weird walk along Victoria Park Road, breaking into the odd skip off the pavement around the masses who don't care whether they get there for the start of the game. My dad and I aren’t like them. We share a pathological need to see the kickoff.
Time to think
In the end, we make it comfortably and my heart rate’s back down to normal by the time Harry Winks and Ricardo are exchanging those short passes they do in the first few seconds which are either absolutely intrinsic to Enzo's masterplan or they do just to add a couple of completed passes to their numbers.
I've found this season to have a hell of a lot more room for reflection during games than last season, or indeed any of the previous 33 or so I've been making the trip up the Welford Road to watch Leicester City. As Jannik Vestergaard and Wout Faes knock the ball back and forth, you start to ponder things. Is this good football? Am I enjoying this? Does what I think even matter?
There have been times I’ve doubted the entertainment level of this style of play. Wondered whether we’d have been better off sticking Vardy and Iheanacho up front and playing four-four-fackin’-two. These are my weaker moments. I know I need to push these thoughts aside in case I start barking at Hermansen to gerrit forward and the like.
Nevertheless, it was that injection of tempo and dynamism into the usual patient approach which we saw in the second halves of the Watford and Plymouth games that had me pumping my arms and legs to get there for kickoff. The thrill of the winner at West Brom. And the minor jeopardy of the chasing pack, even if they're currently being held at a comfortable distance.
As I sat there watching us labour slightly in one of our more challenging first halves, there was another, more specific, reason I absolutely love watching Leicester City at the moment. His name is Abdul Fatawu.
I've written before about how much I love watching wingers fly past their marker and get to the byline to deliver a cross into the box or cut in to shoot. It's my favourite thing a footballer does, and I'm definitely not alone in that. The sense of anticipation when a winger at the top of their game gets the ball and prepares to run at a defender is addictive.
It's one of the few things in football that makes me less bothered whether we score from a specific move. After Fatawu flew past the Millwall left-back for the fifth time in a row and laid the ball on a plate for Wilfred Ndidi to lean back and sweep into the Family Stand, I was less concerned with the misdirected strike than what had made it possible.
That's partly the luxury of this season, the comfort of knowing further chances will come for Leicester while opportunities for our opposition will be fairly limited. Admittedly it should be expected with the kind of squad we have, but it’s still thoroughly enjoyable, purely as a break from the non-stop alertness of Premier League football.
The Leicester supremacy
At its heart, Maresca's masterplan is to play the game on our terms. The weaker the opposition, the more possible this becomes. And Millwall have such relatively few resources that we were able to treat Wednesday night like a training exercise for the most part, even if an alarmingly large part of it involved seeing what would happen if we offered them up an opening goal early doors and then struggled to create chances at the other end.
Playing the game on our terms means the opposition have to adapt and, although to their credit it was Millwall's preparatory adaptation to a 5-3-2 formation that temporarily threw Maresca and our players, that's exactly what Fatawu made them do at half time. Because it can't have been in the visitors' plan to substitute their left-back. It had to happen though, given he was on a yellow card, had been beaten repeatedly in one-on-ones and Fatawu was owed a penalty from a baffling Keith Stroud decision in the opening period.
Fatawu became less of a factor in the second half, but even that opened up more space for others. Millwall were so worried about his threat that Maresca could bring Ricardo further upfield which is the tactical tweak that ultimately won us the game. And you have to love a player who does a backflip after a goal he didn't score.
Wednesday, 10pm. Walking back up Victoria Park Road at a more leisurely pace, my dad and I have our traditional man of the match discussion. He goes Ndidi. I go Fatawu. Last season there were multiple games with neither of us able to put up a single candidate. This season, there are multiple players we never bother mentioning because they could be man of the match every game.
The injection of excitement from Fatawu and the way the whole team sped things up early in the second half added that sprinkle of star quality that makes it all worthwhile. Far longer trips than mine. Far more challenging circumstances. We do it for seasons like this, when Leicester City are in the ascendancy, when Leicester City hold the supremacy. When Leicester City are making the opposition do things they don't want to do. And when it’s Leicester City top of the tree as we approach Christmas.
We’ve been spoiled in recent years but, as last season taught us, you’ve still got to make the most of the good times.
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
