Is this Leicester City team loved?: Closing the chapter on Coventry
Overreactions, mental gymnastics, retrospective musings. It’s all been there this weekend.
The events in, around and during Saturday’s M69 derby highlighted the best of the English game and the ugliest. An electric atmosphere from the home support which is an increasing rarity in this country.
However, leaving the away end brought back memories of the shambolic organisation and treatment that the police carried out on our European forays. I am not giving the time of day to banners written by infant brains. If there was any question mark about the M69 edition being a ‘proper’ derby, rub that out. It was toxic and nasty on occasions.
It was a fact before this game that some Coventry fans had never seen their team beat Leicester. We had the opportunity to quite rightly lord it up - this was their chance to level up or, if not, have a weekend where they could give some back. And why not? Policing of celebration is one of modern football’s biggest curses. Isn’t it what it’s all about?
In retrospective the events of Saturday made me think, while things on the pitch look rosy, there are ‘infrastructure’ issues. That’s not a dig at the terrible logistics at the stadium where common sense on travel, transport and policing appeared to have disappeared.
I have a worry throughout the season, that we are still just a little too… well, soft. We have had this excellent record-projecting form. Over December, it went further up in the gears with squad depth and more goals kicking in. We’ve been a points machine. The late victory at the Hawthorns seemed to galvanise an improvement in performance.
But there’s still goals going in. Late goals. Direct or set piece situations. I was surprised that we are one of the better teams at conceding goals in the last fifteen minutes of the game because it’s felt like a trend.
We have some bad habits.
They were exposed at Coventry. Enzo tends to realise his Italian birth right when the clock ticks down and attempts a deeper line to see a game out. Ipswich’s late equaliser was an example of when your midfield is too deep and, as tends to happen, the nearer you stand next to your own goal, luck or errors get amplified. Two deflections after some weak tackling and Ipswich had pulled off an escape. Mostly deserved, as they had dominated the final part of the game.
By the time the home side took the lead on Saturday, we were playing Ricardo in some hybrid centre-back/right-back role and James Justin as more of a right wing-back. We were understandably defensive in the second half with the red card but when Tom Cannon came off and the tactics changed, we went even deeper. Cesare Casadei was left with a job of playing left wing and centre midfield.
Wout Faes has a very annoying knack of establishing he’s a stronger player than his direct number and then begins to be overconfident. His head stirred that way around the 70th minute as Matty Godden’s legs were giving away and Faes went into that mode.
There was a spell around 60 to 70 minutes where it went very calm. Almost a little realisation among the home support, that this result might get away from them. A switch off from a substitution, Coventry score and the crowd gets into the game. Heads cowed.
Hamza Choudhury’s combative nature can be handy but fair to say, I think, in the moments he was on the pitch, he spent it trying to take chunks out of Sakamoto. There is not being soft and then there is being reckless, which was displayed by both our wingers. We lost focus. That’s happened more than it should. Sheffield Wednesday (A), Ipswich (A), WBA (A), Millwall (A), Middlesbrough (A) with home games against Millwall and Huddersfield all contained silly goals.
It irks as a fan because similar patterns are still in the memory from previous years. This is a different ‘team’ but large portions of the players remain the same. I had a similar feeling on Saturday as to what I had at the two recent losses at the City Ground. Except then there was an obvious scapegoat and the Abdul Fatawu red card had a bearing on the outcome here. We went into the game as favourites and came back looking worryingly short of grit.
I spoke a lot at the start of the season that I felt there was such a chasm between Leicester City fans and the club that Maresca had to make a connection as well as win games. Of course, we have won lots of games but to the background of early departing fans at home games and poor atmospheres. There were three occasions in the second half where the players called for an increase in noise from the away end. Initial roar given but little to back it up.
It made me consider whether this team is truly ‘loved’ by City fans.
Clearly, it’s liked; particularly, Maresca is respected by the majority of supporters. But is it truly loved? Bar the opening day victory, there’s been very few games which involve a battle endured for both parties, fan and players. An away win at your local rivals would have answered that itch. This was our chance to be strong, professional and celebrate it in the stands.
You can tell Enzo knows how important fan opinion is as well. He’s been committed enough to repeatedly ask for louder atmospheres, meet fan groups and make very pointed gestures in applause at the end of games. I suspect his background in the Italian game gives him an awareness of how important the backing of a fanbase can be. Yet, there are fans who haven’t warmed to the playing style or the more methodical approach while others are still burned from last year. There is plenty of praise, but I think the saying ‘actions speak louder than words’ applies. Actions suggest there’s still a gap.
Equally, the whole scenario of Saturday was rare. Leicester City have forever been known in my lifetime as the perennial underdog. Martin O’Neill’s teams revelled in it. Claudio Ranieri screamed forty points weekly until eighty percent of the season was complete. Here we are now this season – a behemoth in budget and sitting pretty at the top of the league. To some it was expected and that probably plays into the actions of our supporters.
I think as a fanbase we feel slightly uncomfortable being here or we don’t know to play this role. It is nonetheless disappointing that some fans have shown all the class that the ‘big six’ did to us as we fought our way to success in 2016 on social media. Particularly given there is a strong chance we will be having such opinions pushed on us next season as we look up from the bottom of the table.
Ultimately, Enzo already has a huge amount of credit in the bank. He has shown the appetite to learn, adapt and alter. Tactical errors will be made by a novice as a manager. His appointment signalled our position in the footballing food chain. In the same way, a player must learn, develop and then you pass on that asset further up. Maresca as manager represents the same path. If we are successful, he will be pinched higher up.
Saturday was a big lesson about how Coventry are at one part of their journey and they did a bit of a ‘Leicester’. This team is at the start of the journey and I’m sure moments which are occurring will have a say how that team looks in future.
Teams can be made by their lessons learned. We really need to take this one on the chin and push on.
