On Brighton and Albrighton: Leicester City reminded of the long road back
The Leicester City socials have been ablaze since Saturday with tributes and plaudits for two living legends. The sense of unity was extremely welcome. But did the tickertape merely paper over the cracks that appeared earlier in the week?
It’s been one big love-in for Jamie Vardy and Marc Albrighton following the goal the latter laid on for the former against Birmingham City. And the sentiments were spot on: we must make the most of every last contribution they can muster, with the last of all surely coming soon.
While the final pair of Premier League-winning squad members deserve the praise, their goalscoring link-up came at the end of a week that saw harsher words for one or two members of the Leicester City executive who were also present in 2016.
It was quite interesting to follow on social media and messageboards: all it took was a speculative tweet from The Athletic’s transfer reporter David Ornstein and Leicester’s online fanbase went into total meltdown.
The subtext was clear. Enzo Maresca has the team top of the table, but the club, the decision-makers, those in the director’s box, aren’t off the hook yet following last season’s calamity.
The subject of Ornstein’s tweet was Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, linked with historically smaller clubs that have been so well-run in the past few years that they’ve leapfrogged Leicester in the pecking order. Through smart thinking, Brighton and Brentford have earned the right to circle our better players.
As fans, we’re left to question just how bad the financial situation might be. Reading between the lines, Dewsbury-Hall doesn’t appear to be agitating for a move but a host of Premier League clubs are well aware just how tempted our suits would be by a hefty bid. The worries are well-founded if the club are contemplating, even for a second, selling someone so integral and risking the bounty of promotion back to the Premier League.
Amusingly, there were reports recently that Manchester United’s new owners have been taking an interest in Leicester’s Seagrave training centre - not with a view to making a bid, despite their club’s fondness for large, immobile things with Leicester City written on them, but to nick a few ideas for an upgrade on their ageing Carrington complex. Cue United fans in the comments bemoaning the notion Seagrave was funded entirely by the sale of hapless Harry Maguire. It was enough to bring a tear to the eye - in more ways than one.
The concept of Seagrave, the buy-low and sell-high approach, socking it to the established elite off the pitch: we lived the dream quite apart from our trophy-winning and European exploits. But somewhere along the line, Leicester City forgot they’d need to sell players to keep the model afloat.
While it was fantastic to see so many Academy graduates make appearances on Saturday, Dennis Praet’s presence was a reminder of the huge wages we’re still paying players who have made a minimal contribution this season. That isn’t a dig at Praet; the reminder applies as much to the likes of Vardy and Albrighton, who - sentiment aside - a well-run club wouldn’t be giving tens of thousands of pounds a week to not play in the second tier.
Albrighton started the week in his more usual role, the five-minute cameo. In fact, he was standing on the sideline waiting to be introduced as Ipswich bagged their equaliser. The scorer? Loanee Jeremy Sarmiento, one of several bright young attacking talents sourced by Brighton and Hove Albion to augment their savvily-assembled squad.
Leicester’s main failing last season was a set of desperate defensive options. But even when that became clear, there were few attacking saviours to call upon, scant support for James Maddison and Harvey Barnes. We hadn’t just suddenly forgotten how to sell fringe players, we’d long forgotten to take a few punts. The Sarmientos, Mitomas, Buonanottes, Encisos.
Perhaps we surrendered our gun to avoid shooting ourselves in the foot. Because in classic Leicester City style, the one punt we did take on a young attacker during that period - George Hirst - has ended up bolstering our nearest rivals for promotion during the first half of this season.
You could argue we found ourselves in a tricky situation after the title win, which meant we had to pay big money to keep hold of our stars. The rest of the squad benefitted from an uplift to ensure there wasn’t a huge discrepancy.
This season has still represented a fresh start, despite the bloated wage bill. A new manager we can unite behind. A new approach we are learning to love. But this week showed the fragility of it all. Under the surface, people are still very angry about what happened last season and many will remain frustrated that we’ll be playing catch-up in a big way even if we do get promoted at the first opportunity.
As things stand, it feels like Dewsbury-Hall will stay but his future nags away while the transfer window remains open, not least because all it took was one tweet for the nerves to be exposed.
For those of us who were quite enjoying a quiet January, relishing the opportunity to leave all the usual nonsense behind, suddenly February can’t come soon enough.
The coming weeks present a chance for confidence and trust to be restored on the pitch, for fragility to be replaced by stability, for new heroes to achieve things for Leicester City.
