They couldn’t buy a win; were leaking goals like crazy and looked to be going down quicker than water in a well-maintained sink hole. Then…BANG! Queue the arrival of October.
Leicester’s October results.
Despite it-being still-only September, The Foxes looked doomed. The bookies were talking on sport’s radio stations about the odds they were giving for Brendan Rodgers to part ways with the club sometime soon and the pundits were often talking about what was going wrong at the King Power Stadium.
Every press conference the Northern Irish Manager gave there was a sense of doom & gloom about it…with a sprinkling of inevitability as well.
‘Too many good players released and not enough ‘new blood’ coming in’, was the basic diagnosis of their woes and the manager didn’t seem too happy with the people who held the ‘purse strings’.
No wins and a whopping 22 goals conceded in just 7 league outings – it even took penalties to nudge past League Two’s Stockport County in the Second Round North of the League Cup, which ended 0-0 in normal time.
Then came October.
· Leicester City 4-0 Nottingham Forest. A shock result in some ways, in that they mustered 4 goals in one match whilst, at the same time, actually managing to keep a clean sheet against league opposition. Not so shocking that they beat equally-bad Forest.
· AFC Bournemouth 2-1 Leicester City. Aaahhh…normal service resumes; although the home side had proven to be an increasingly tough side to beat by this time.
· Leicester City 0-0 Crystal Palace. What’s this?! Another clean sheet?
· Leicester City 2-0 Leeds United.
· Wolverhampton 0-4 Leicester City.
5 games, 3 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat. 11 gaols scored and just 1 conceded! And we’re next…hence my title.
v Leicester City
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| King Power Stadium |
Predicted line-up, subs and outcome:
(Number correct from the starting line-up in the last game: 8/11).
Fluid 4-1-4-1 / 4-5-1 / 4-3-3 (possibly 3-6-1 at times):
____________________Haaland___________________
Grealish__________________________________Foden
____________________________De Bruyne_________
_____________Silva_____________________________
_____________________Rodri____________________
Ake____________________________________Cancelo
_____________Dias_____________Akanji___________
____________________Ederson____________________
Subs: Ortega, Gomez, Lewis, Laporte, Stones, Gundogan, Palmer, Mahrez, Alvarez.
Ed returns in net in net.
I’ve got a feeling that despite Aymeric, who is still being ‘game managed’ following a return from a long injury lay-off, not seeing action in midweek; that both he & John might be saved for a far less important fixture on Wednesday night. Therefore, I’m going for a back 4-come-3 of Nathan, Ruben, Manuel and Joao; assuming the latter is deemed recovered / fit enough after complaining of feeling unwell last Tuesday night.
Rodders to ‘sit in’ and protect at the back of the midfield, while Jack, Bernardo, Kevin & Phil provide the attacking threat / creativity ahead of him.
There is a doubt about Erling after he too complained of feeling some illness and a temperature and he also took a knock to his foot - like the rest of the players, he was to be assessed late Friday afternoon. Pep & his team will, therefore, already know whether the Norwegian international can take part in a few hour's time – like the rest of us, I’m having to guess as to whether he’ll make the squad for this afternoon’s match (12:30pm KO BST). I’m going for him to be given the ‘all clear’ and a starting place in ‘the 11’.
Stefan returns to the bench as keeper cover; Sergio, Rico, Aymeric & John are the defenders on the side. Ilkay, Cole & Riyad are the midfielders / wingers in ‘the 9’, while Julian will be primed to come on as reserve striker.
Notable absences:
- Benjamin Mendy – Suspended by the club until further notice.
- Kyle Walker – Still out for an unspecified period of time following surgery on his groin; although we are told that he is still making good progress.
- Kalvin Phillips – Out for us until after the World Cup while he recovers from a shoulder injury / surgery. A further update from his manager states that he is improving faster than expected; is training with the ball but is still avoiding physical contact with his teammates for the time being.
Do I agree with Pep’s (predicted) line-up?
I often have a little sigh to myself whenever I see Jack or Riyad’s name on the team sheet but Jack is the lesser of the two evils at the moment and for want of a better phrase.
I’m also never REALLY comfortable seeing a central defender trying to do an impression of a wing-back either; although I will give Nathan plenty of credit for how he’s improved further under Pep and for his largely solid form this season…and last.
Yeah, it looks okay to me.
Result?
Okay, I’ve already given a fairly detailed analysis of our hosts and although I’ve suggested MASSIVE improvement from our Saturday opponents, I will give a nod to the fact that all three of their October wins came against sides who now sit in the bottom 3; while the draw came against a Crystal Palace side who continue to be as unpredictable / inconsistent as ‘City of old’ (City fans of a far-younger age won’t have a clue what I’m talking about there).
However, wins improve mood and confidence and bearing in mind how Leicester started the season…they must be absolutely buzzin’ right now! I think we’re in for a toughie this afternoon.
How are we doing?
It would be ludicrous to suggest that we’re playing badly – if we were playing so poorly then we must be the luckiest side in the country; sitting, as we are, just 2 points off the top of the league table with a far-superior goal difference and have virtually secured top spot in the group stages of the Champions League.
However, to say that we’re playing well at the moment might be pushing it a little bit too.
- I think it would be unfair to analyse the FC Copenhagen game too much, seeing as we were down to 10 men from the 30th minute away from home. But we did come away from an organised but otherwise very average side having no goals to our name…oh yeah, and having missed another penalty when we still had 10 men on the pitch.
- We didn’t play very well at Anfield and although we had chances to score, once again we looked a little exposed on the flanks of our defence and generally scared to have a ‘proper pop’ at the home side. Result? A break-away goal and a 1-0 defeat.
- At home to Brighton, we faced yet another hard-working, organised side who went ‘man to man’ with us and although a 3-1 win sounds decent enough; we most-definitely weren’t at our best and most-certainly made hard work of getting the 3 points.
- Then a half-dead rubber game away at Dortmund in our last outing with both sides not too keen to put 100% into it; two of our players had a fever / slight illness…oh yeah, and another missed penalty by us.
4 games, 1 win, 2 draws, 1 defeat. 3 goals scored all in one match / 3 blanks and 2 goals conceded. Yes, it would be ludicrous to say that we’re playing badly…but we’re definitely not playing very well either at the moment, in my opinion.
· Like Pep said in his post-match press conference in Germany on Tuesday night, fatigue is definitely a factor for some of our players. However, dare suggest that to fans of other English clubs and you’ll definitely get laughed at.
· I’ve said this next one very recently – The usual suspect performers are carrying us through games at the moment; especially those who are capable of ‘moments of magic’ to pull off a crackin’ final pass or goal even when we’re not necessarily performing very well. But we’re being dragged down by the same under-performing players and / or players who, generally speaking perform well, but who have brief periods of baffling play / performances. Of course, no-one’s perfect…
· We have had plenty of long-term injures and then problems with players coming back from long lay-offs but, once again, try telling that to a fan of another English side…
· These continuing issues with the wing-back position aren’t helping us in the slightest. Seeing as Pep appears reluctant to play new signing, Sergio Gomez, on the left of defence and after losing Kyle Walker for half our season so far, it’s resulting in all sorts of combinations at the back; with central defenders being asked to cover both flanks in a sort of 4-come-3 shuffling system, at times. Joao Cancelo too – and he’s one in my category of players who, generally speaking, performs well but who has brief periods of baffling play / performances – has probably been over-used and, as I’ve already stated, was even struggling with a temperature / virus and was subbed at half time last Tuesday night.
Back to this weekend’s game and I’m going to say it once more, as I seem to be doing about a lot of opposition sides these days, that despite their August & September troubles; Leicester remain a hard-working side who are very dangerous on the counter.
And when I look at that hyphenated word, “hard-working”, it takes me right back to the last time we visited the King Power Stadium in the league, which was September 2021 and where they gave us a PROPER workout in humid, 70F+ (21C+) temperatures. A crackin’ game, I recall, and we were made to work really, really hard for our 0-1 win, which was scored by Bernardo Silva in the 62nd minute. I think we’re going to need all our powers of recovery ahead of this early kick-off – I hope we had the hyperbaric chambers an’ what-av-yer in full use since the players returned from Germany…
Moving away from the physical aspect, if we turn up thinking that ‘these are there for the taking’, then I think we’re gonna come unstuck.
I recognise that there’s a certain dourness in what I’ve written so far and that I’ve emphasised, also, our host’s upturn in recent performances and fortunes. HOWEVER…I’ve got a lot of confidence that whatever team our manager will put out this afternoon will be enough to ‘get the job done’ – it’s an away win for me. I think it’ll be a good contest - one I’m really looking forward to watching.
Last season’s, corresponding pre-match prediction and result…
Prediction: Win
Result: Won
(Pre-match blog posting from that game)
For those who practice this twice-a-year, don’t forget to put your clocks back 1-hour before you go to bed on Saturday night – an extra hour at the weekend for all of those countries / regions that do!
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| Solidarity |
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