Leicester City missed an opportunity to go to the top of the Premier League with another lacklustre home display against Everton.
With a third home game in six days, Leicester City were unable to complete a hat trick of victories as Carlo Ancelotti’s men produced a perfect defensive display. The game was fairly even with little given away until Richarlison produced a fierce shot that Kasper Schmeichel seemed to react slowly to as he pushed it into the corner of the net. Not long after Jamie Vardy should have equalised with a free header that he planted directly at Olsen.
The Toffees’ organisation was far superior as Leicester struggled to take the game to Everton or get ant long range shots even close to the goal. The game was out of reach when Holgate put in a rebound after a fine double Schmeichel save. The introduction of Ayoze Perez off the bench sprang Leicester into life as he ran between lines and attacked with purpose, he thought he’d won a penalty which Lee Mason correctly overturned. This before Perez also had a goal rightly disallowed for offside. So what three things did we learn from Wednesday night’s disappointing encounter?
Scoring the first goal at the King Power is crucial
At the end of last season and in the 19th home game Leicester succumbed to their fourth home defeat of the season as they were pushed away from the top 4 places. Leicester have now this season equalled that number of home defeats in only their 7th game at the King Power.
There could be all manner of reasons for this but what is clear is that Leicester are still a confidence team. On Sunday against Brighton the first goal set Leicester off to a swaggering display, whereas against Everton going a goal behind seemed to shoot their confidence. This also adds to the oppositions confidence with teams now more than happy to soak up pressure and hit the foxes on the counter attack. Richarlison’s early shot catching Schmeichel off guard was all the invitation Everton needed to have something to hold onto.
In 19 games at the King Power in 2020, the team that has scored first has gone on to win the game and that stat is starting to be shared more frequently between the home and away teams.
Another factor is that this was Leicester’s third game in six days against an Everton side that had an extra days rest going into this game. Leicester are also suffering still without a whole back 4’s worth of defensive players and made Christian Fuchs play at centre back for the second time in three days.
But no excuses should be made for the forward players, Vardy should be equalising with an easy header and Youri Tielemans, James Maddison and Cengiz Under need to be hitting the target better from long range. Two shots on target simply isn’t good enough for any team and will inevitably end in defeat unless you have a tight defence.
Leicester are the worst Premier League team defending set pieces
The good news is that Leicester have a whole raft of strong defensive players at the club, the bad news is that they’re frequently injured or suspended. Tonight Jonny Evans was watching from the bench serving an inevitable one match ban for his collection of yellows. Soyuncu a strong defender in the air is notable by his absence. Castagne adds more aerial strength and Ricardo will be closing down crosses when he returns. So obviously when they return Leicester will stop conceding goals from crosses and particularly set pieces? Not neccessarily.
Soyuncu had already been caught out on crosses when he was playing this season and Evans has mostly been present in many of the seven goals conceded from corners and free kicks. The key seems to be zonal marking and most obviously the lack of any success with it. The common reaction to that would be to simply go man for man. But that does a disservice to the real problem.
The players aren’t attacking the ball when defending and are hampered by a goalkeeper not willing to move from his goal line to help out. This is a problem that won’t go away even when the notable absentees return. This lack of tightness at the back will continue to cause Leicester issues.
These problems aren’t catastrophic
Amidst this negativity it does still need to be remembered how successful this season has been so far. Leicester are still within touching distance of the summit of the Premier League all whilst Brendan Rodgers is constantly having to patch together a team with injuries and suspensions all over it.
A trip to Prague in February in the Europa League is secure and Leicester are still a side that is an attractive prospect. Only three days prior to this loss and Leicester were purring against Brighton. It is also far harder for foxes fans to be even handed when they haven’t experienced a Premier League draw for 18 matches with the transition between great and poor performances seeming to change almost day to day with the amount of games they have already played this season (20 in case you’re keeping count).
After nearly two years in charge of the club and Brendan Rodgers is maintaining Leicester City as an attractive team in and around the Champions League places. we just have to accept that these types of performances are going to happen whilst this young team navigates itself through a challenging fixture list with little rest. It won’t be boring under Rodgers and those who are annoyed with an Everton home defeat may want to remember how turgid the footballing existence was under the last manager.