Hazzetta dello Sport 2024 - Issue 5: Leicester City v Everton
When the words ‘gladiatorial battle’ are said to you, your mind casts to those scenes from the film Gladiator. The Colosseum packed to the rafters with a crowd baying for blood.
An emperor looking on at the show he’s playing out to his people. The strength of two fine chiselled, athletic warriors fighting. Trading punch for punch in the beating Roman sun.
Gladiators, ready
For those fighters their careers didn’t start in Rome. It would have been more humble surroundings. Out in deep Western Gaul. A ramshackle of an arena sits on a swamp field. It is pouring down with rain.
The local governmental head isn’t coming out of his house to watch this sorry sight. Two lonely, forlorn battlers are about to go out swingers. Barely a soul in the stadium. Just a few drunken men and a rabid dog.
Out steps Sean Dyche with a trident in one hand and a shield with the Everton church on it in the other. He’s made his living on days like today in these wilderness lands. Direct. Attritional. To the point.
Steve Cooper, known as the Dragon, wanders out. Looks up towards the royal box to find no soul looking down on him. He displays a rather funny looking blocking device – effectively three shields protecting his midriff. A sabre as his weapon.
This is Saturday 21st September, 3pm at King Power Stadium. A real slugfest. The victor continues to turn out weekly at this dusty amphitheatre while the loser? Well, that could be the end for him.
A six-pointer
We are quite aware that Hazzetta has been a gloomy, negative outlook on the fortunes of our favourite club. Quite preachy too. Hence we have this very leftfield beginning to this edition. This is not an attempt at trying to shoehorn as many Italian references in as possible but, rather, giving this weekend’s match the correct billing. This is an important game but played out to little attention.
In the radar of the Premier League, this matchday strikes some importance. Everton face Leicester where Sean Dyche faces the sack and Steve Cooper will face a toxic wrath if fortunes fail to go his way. While Southampton and Ipswich play each other as well, after five games, the bottom of the table already begins to have its narrative readied.
That’s interesting really when it comes to the Foxes. When the fixture list was drawn out, two points from the first four represents more than many expected.
We have scored in every game and there has been a telling pivotal moment in each. Some of those have either been very tight officiating decisions, playing errors or tactical errors.
It’s fair to say we are with those who are struggling to believe Steve Cooper is up to it. However, we are also aware that Cooper’s management has been scrutinised to an extent that no Leicester manager has faced before. We ponder why?
The tactical errors are a consideration which deserves its own article but link back to the issue at the centre of it. At first, it is easy to dismiss his Nottingham Forest history as a weak excuse for why Cooper has become disliked so quickly. Rather it is because Steve Cooper has made the miscalculation that what worked for Nottingham Forest (or any other team battling relegation) will work for Leicester City.
Under pressure
It didn’t work for Forest under Cooper last season. The results and performances were poor and he was sacked swiftly. Twice in two match days we’ve had Cooper loudly calling out officiating; we have seen this at Forest and it did not come across as well. Interestingly, yesterday whilst driving and listening to Talksport the latest interview about the Palace VAR call was described as him using a ‘conspiracy theory’.
When mentioning my reservations in the office about him, the resident Forest fan turned around with an angry glare as though I was talking about his father in a negative way. Their connection with him is like ours with Pearson. He laid the foundations.
I laid out the concerns for Leicester. Signings such as Ayew favoured over younger, developing players. The three defensive midfielders. The officiating complaints. The tendency to give away leads. The nature of going overly defensive when in front. The Forest fan had seen it before.
The tonic for Leicester lies in taking the best from his time at Forest and mixing it with the best of what City have. Use it.
As dramatically described earlier, Sean Dyche arrives in town badly needing a win which is something Everton have failed to do away from home since December. He’s missing a whole list of players due to illness with doubts over Dominic Calvert-Lewin and his preferred centre back pairing of Keane and Tarkowski.
The opportunity is there for City to take advantage; they badly need to find some killer instinct when it comes to playing teams within their ‘pool’ at the bottom of the table. After all, we have already got a record to break; on three occasions, Leicester have had a four game winless streak in the Premier League and every time, we have been relegated.
Yeah, it’s pretty difficult to shake off this gloom.
