Winning at the blades put Leicester City fourth in the Premier League to add to next round Europa league qualification – but why is this still not good enough in some Foxes fans eyes?
Following defeats to Premier league whipping boys Fulham and Ukrainian minnows Zorya Luhansk, many Leicester City fans went into the trip at Bramall Lane with trepidation. Sheffield United had taken 1 point from their first ten games and sat not too proudly adrift at the bottom of the league.
The game followed a familiar pattern with Leicester dominating possession and chances, smacking the post twice in the first half around Perez first goal of the season and another soft set piece conceded header.
The second half was tighter with the blades threatening in key areas and again winning set-piece headers at will. But the foxes always threatened openings before Vardy raced away in the last minute to give Brendan Rodgers men their first 3 points for a month.
It is understandable why many supporters would see a fixture at the bottom placed club as a potential banana skin. Leicester have lost at home to Fulham and last season they conspired to lose two and draw one at the relegated sides. Flattering to deceive is something we’ve grown accustomed to.
A more worrying trait is the expectation of success to the blue part of the East Midlands. Social media is not the best place to assess these expectations but it does seem more and more apparent that there is discontent at Leicester’s run of 4 games without a win. I tried to articulate this before the game today and was met with some interesting responses:
“Stop trying to justify, **** performances with our history”
“Doubling down on your loser mentality”
My viewpoint is not everyone’s and i do believe that there is a new generation of Leicester fan emerging. If you’ve only known the recent Premier League history because you’re young or new to supporting the club then it is likely that you will see 2015/16 on different terms to the ones with more years and decades supporting under their belt. Not that its a competition, supporting Leicester for longer doesn’t make your opinion any more valuable than one passionate fan with only 5 or 6 years in their locker.
But where we all need to come together is our expectation levels. Many foxes fans pre season were predicting a season of struggle given the way 2019/20 ended. Add that to the horrendous injury list, a stacked Europa League schedule and the emergence of many sleeping Premier League giants and it would seem fair to predict anything around mid table this season was a fair target.
However, the season has gone very well so far with winning seven of the first eleven games. Clearly there have been some severe blips, not least the three home defeats. But too often the bigger picture is being forgotten. Brendan Rodgers has been in the job just under two years and for the vast majority of that he has had the club sitting the in the champions league places, getting to the semi final of a cup for the first time in twenty years and producing only the second European campaign in the same two decades.
Go back even further and you will see a club that around ten years ago was in a mess when Khun Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha and Top arrived. Since then it has been a whirlwind fairytale story of success and heartbreak:
- Play off agony to winning the Championship with 102 points.
- The Great escape season to winning the Premier League.
- Champions League quarter finalists to the most tragic of helicopter crashes.
- Replacing multi million pound departures with cheaper better replacements.
- Top 4 heartbreak to………..(insert next drama here).
Since the owners have come in it has been difficult not to be taken in by the story of Leicester City whether you support them or not. The squad is now worth hundreds of millions, managers and players have come and gone, but still the club is refusing to be pushed aside by the supposed Premier League big boys and their legions of glory hunting followers. A world class training facility is on the brink of being opened, the rumoured plans for the stadium expansion look extraordinary and still the club is getting results.
If 2016 taught us anything it’s that daring to dream is okay. because sometimes the impossible dreams aren’t as impossible as we first thought. But also let’s not forget that Leicester’s recent history of success is a new path for all of us. Expecting and demanding that we sweep away all teams and getting wound up with mini blips in form belies where Leicester have come from and also who we are. We’re still the Premier League underdog and should never not enjoy a last minute winner scraped against a bottom-of-the-league-side.