Hazzetta dello Sport 2024 - Issue 8: Southampton v Leicester City
We appreciate serious, top journalism at the Hazzetta. We’ve really felt this in a week where several tabloids went with inane and manic ramblings on the recent England managerial appointment.
Therefore the lighter tone of The Athletic’s international break fluff piece on the preferred phrases each Premier League manager likes to use was welcome.
Steve Cooper’s overused term is ‘the plan’. If you need to believe this has substance, google ‘Steve Cooper’ and ‘the plan’ and there are numerous search results showing recorded interviews with him uttering the words. He feels the need to refocus the objective of his club in exchanges with the press (and by default the supporters). Therefore any minor bump in the road is just an obstacle to pass for the overall goal of the season. Sound logic really.
It has been with great difficulty that a section of Leicester fans has struggled to state exactly why they are unsure of Cooper and his abilities to be a Premier League manager. To do it concisely is nearly impossible. However, his own lexicon signposts the answer. ‘The plan’ is the cause of dis-taste.
As seven games have passed, the pattern of what Cooper thinks are the solutions to keep Leicester City in the top flight have emerged. Only one full back can be aggressive whilst the other falls back, out of possession, into a third centre back role. The same notion applies to the wingers. One of them is attacking and pushes the opposition’s defensive line while the other is more central and conservative. The midfield three are defensively minded and the 6-foot Wilfred Ndidi carries the weight of connecting play to the attacker.
Cooper went away from those tactics against Bournemouth and delivered the first win of the season for the Foxes. The first half worked as a dream. The exchanges of passing and movement on a couple of occasions were superb and it was such an instance which led to Facundo Buonanotte’s winning goal.
The role of Jordan Ayew centrally worked to block a passing lane into the underrated Lewis Cook. Buonanotte’s tendency to play inside of his flank pushed at a weakness in the channel of Bournemouth’s left-back and centre-back. They deserved the emphatic clap upon the half time whistle.
While Andoni Iraola worked to find a solution in the second half, Leicester were limp and negative. The plan which was laid out began to extinguish. Ayew wasn’t so useful now. There is no player who meets the opposite of ‘easy on the eye’ quite as well as Ayew.
Buonanotte started to feel wasted on the wing. While the Leicester goal led a charmed life, fans and players (judging from Wout Faes’s gesturing) questioned whether something had to change. It took until the 80th minute until the plan evolved - Abdul Fatawu’s ability to get up the pitch changed the game’s narrative. Three points and the heady heights of 15th.
The lack of a ‘full’ ninety-minute performance has led to questioning of Cooper’s in-game management and whether he’s too overtly a planner who struggles to alter from his pre-planned tactics.
The trip to Southampton brings this topic to a head. There is a trend in football whereby tactics and style have an increased importance over, as someone such as Big Sam may testify, ‘the three points’. The spontaneity of long range goals and bizarre, natural instances of play are a proven increasing rarity. When the Foxes faced the Saints last season, twice they hammered them, and this stemmed from Enzo Maresca’s willingness to tweak his tactics.
Russell Martin’s complete reluctance to move away from his style caused them an issue in those two fixtures and this has continued in the Premier League. They have conceded goals playing passing football too deep in the pitch and on the transition, they get easily picked off.
Therefore, the intrigue this weekend is will Cooper change ‘the plan’? In particular, the introduction of two wingers who stretch the pitch and work so well on the counter. Jordan Ayew’s biggest curse is that his first thought is often to protect the ball rather than move it on. It’s an asset which can be used well but at St Mary’s, the evidence suggest it’s not required here.
How Leicester line up is dictated by Buonanotte’s availability. He spent Wednesday evening with a front seat view to Lionel Messi rolling back the years with a hat-trick and two assists in a 6-0 World Cup Qualifying win for Argentina over Bolivia. If he’s not available, that gives Cooper a choice to make on the right wing. Fatawu or Ayew, and Winks to reclaim his place in central midfield.
The impact of this game is huge when you study the fixtures and table. A win for Leicester would see them grow an eight point lead over Southampton and Wolves (whose fixture pain continues with the visit to Molineux of Manchester City). While Ipswich Town and Everton play each other, so any win puts space between Leicester and at least three rivals. We might even surpass Manchester United…
We wait to see what the plan is. As much as there are reservations here, it will be a plan not everyone agrees with. Breathing room before next Friday evening’s derby with Forest would be greatly appreciated all around. That dreaded fear of an away end celebrating Leicester’s entrance to the relegation zone is already playing havoc.
Leicester City didn’t play Ipswich Town at all until Boxing Day 1961, when we travelled to Portman Road to face the team that would win the First Division title for the first and only time the following April.
So in the 1962/63 season, our first away win over Ipswich came against the reigning champions of England.