5 things that went wrong in Leicester’s 0-3 loss to West Ham

Second-half syndrome

Any long-term Leicester City supporter will likely be familiar with the phenomenon of being utterly dreadful in the first half, then turning on the charm in the second, a sort of ‘second-half syndrome,’  if you will. Ten of Leicester’s twelve goals this season have come in the second half, while just last week, Rodgers’ men limped to a 1-1 draw with Manchester City at half time courtesy of a Jamie Vardy penalty, before ruthlessly adding four to their tally in the second half.  Unfortunately, the East Midlands Club left themselves with far too much to do on this occasion, going 0-2 down inside of 35 minutes.

If you get into half time at 1-1 or even 0-1 it’s a different game, but coming back from two goals down is a big ask. It’s not really clear what causes this problem for Leicester, but it’s been there for as long as I can remember. It’s persisted home and way, through changes of players, managers and staff and seems to haunt the East Midlanders on games they should be taking supposedly easy points. Any team can come back from 0-1 down, after all, this is the Premier League- but unfortunately today’s match adds itself to the long list of occasions where Leicester left themselves with a mountain to climb far too early on.

Man City hangover?

I can’t imagine what the atmosphere was like in the dressing room last week after Leicester’s 2-5 demolition of Manchester City. I wouldn’t blame any of the Leicester players if they were riding high all week- I know I was! Toppling one of the most successful teams in recent history is a statement of an ambitious club if there ever was one. However, it seems as though this giant-slaying seems to have left a sort of hangover on Leicester’s squad, as it has done in the past.

Cast your mind back to December 2018, and you might remember historic successive wins against Chelsea and Manchester City in the Premier League, before being brought hurtling back down to Earth with a 0-1 loss to relegation battlers Cardiff City. Similarly, after spanking Southampton 0-9 away from home last season, Leicester fell to a 1-2 defeat in the reverse fixture. If we can take anything from these matches and Leicester’s loss today, it’s that Leicester suffer from a sort of cockiness after big wins, leaving them severely underestimating their opponents.

What’s more, the overall quality of Leicester’s play today was poor. On numerous occasions Jamie Vardy or Harvey Barnes looked to break through, but consistently sloppy long balls from the midfield rendered their efforts fruitless. Meanwhile, the defence looked half asleep all game, with the Hammers’ second goal a complete farce. If Leicester want to get back to winning ways against Aston Villa, then they’d better get return to the same sharpness on show against Man City last week.