Hazzetta dello Sport 2024/25 - Issue 13: Brentford v Leicester City
As Craig David once sung, sack manager by Monday, identify his replacement by Wednesday, appoint by Friday and hopefully we chilling come Sunday.
If I was cosplaying James Richardson, this week we would have been pulling the papers showing the story of Steve Cooper to Ruud van Nistelrooy.
The sacking was confirmed on Sunday afternoon which teed up a story about the squad’s Christmas party in Copenhagen looking awfully misjudged and ill-timed.
Monday’s editions told us about the potential managers and shortlist.
By Tuesday’s copy, Graham Potter and David Moyes were ruled out.
Wednesday initially saw a story of the riot act being read to the squad regards their behaviour in Denmark and by the evening, it looked set to be Ruud’s job.
On Thursday, we had the story that rather unsurprisingly BC.Game are not really the company you want on a family club’s shirt and that the due diligence done on them must have been wafer thin.
As Josimar Football reported yesterday, “In July 2023, BC.GAME was one of the URLs for illegal betting websites the British Gambling Commission asked Google to block in its territory” - this was, of course, a year before Leicester signed any deal with them.
At the time of writing on Friday, the identity of our new manager is still in a very Leicester City way not confirmed. It’s been confirmed three coaches have been taking training sessions and Ben Dawson handled the pre-match press conference but as for the tactical stuff?
Probably Top himself given there’s been a reputational change in him finally ‘growing up’ and ‘putting his big boy pants on’. His late arrival has been like wanting the binman to come back after a strike. It’s great the bins are empty now but it still bloody stinks around here.
Saturday’s display against Chelsea was the perfect example of a Premier League game under Cooper. While never overwhelmed, we were comprehensively outplayed and fortune favoured us, such as Cole Palmer’s absurd miss. The air of resignation was present from the first whistle. The two late penalty shouts gave Cooper the easy target of his post-match conferences and that had already become very tiring.
Tactically, we were a mess and Cooper was schooled by Enzo Maresca using Cooper’s own preferred tactics - by overloading one side of the pitch with their full-back and continually having a flank unguarded. James Justin, often rightly criticised this season, was being asked to play two positions while Kasey McAteer got teased into pressing the centre-back. Ultimately though, there was a pattern of Leicester often clearing the ball to no-one other than an isolated Jamie Vardy. The team very rarely came up the pitch collectively.
In essence, that’s why Cooper was never liked. You can choose to be a possession-based team or alternatively hit the channels and scrap for the second ball. However, that needs to be with the team further up the pitch. We did that once; the finest forty minutes of the season against Bournemouth where we looked a more capable team. However, the second half of that game was far more like the regular habit of holding deep.
Ruud van Nistelrooy’s potential arrival coincides with a fortnight of huge fixtures and very little time available for him to coach. It might just have to be pure vibes. He did that successfully as a caretaker at Manchester United and got a good look at our squad across the two victories. The lack of a Premier League record is a gamble, but this is someone whose coaching career stretches back to 2013. He has managed nearly 100 competitive games of football and his time at PSV was reasonable.
There were initial ups and downs but from 24th January 2022, his PSV team didn’t lose a single league game, and this was despite him losing Cody Gakpo and Noni Madueke in January. There was no league success, but PSV did win the Dutch Cup.
Still, criticism is loud from pundits and media alike. Largely, a glance at the table has provided an opinion. Ignore the deeper statistics or the eye test of two wretched performances on live television - Forest and Chelsea at home. However, this sort of vitriol has previously been a uniting factor for the squad and fans (either side of Claudio Ranieri’s appointment and departure). Here’s hoping for a similar reaction.
Just last night, I had to play a straight bat and avoid the pitfalls of biting to a Forest-supporting work colleague. They are awfully opinionated about Leicester City right now. The part which stings is the ‘what do you expect’ line.
In a summer where generally every top flight club raised their prices to questionable levels, that supporters expect ambition and quality in product shouldn’t be surprise. Outside observers expected Leicester fans to pay increased prices in the hope of just surviving rather than actually enjoying what’s on show.
It should not be left unsaid that it was reported this week the Premier League have seen a 17% increase in their commercial rights package for the cycle of 2025 to 2028. They are receiving more revenue than ever before, but they still need more money from the average joe.
Anyway, to the actual game. In fact, let’s give a Paul Merson preview. This game has goals. It’s very difficult to predict how this could all play out. The logic says Brentford strengthen their record as the best home team in the division while there’s a feeling that Leicester’s squad need to dig a result out from somewhere to keep a lot of their supporters on side.
The loss of Ivan Toney has made Brentford a more expansive side for it, and they have stepped away from their overly direct approach. Still canny from set pieces, their transition is far more fluid - hence the success of Bryan Mbeumo this season.
At least it feels like we have some jeopardy because that certainly didn’t feel the case a week ago.
