Leicester salvaged a crucial point at a negative Everton side to extend their unbeaten run to nine games.
Another away day dominating performance where Leicester City come away with something, although in this instance it was less than they deserved. Given James Rodriguez’s outstanding first half strike and Everton’s deep block it was looking like a frustrating night beckoned, but with Leicester holding onto the ball confidently they made the breakthrough when Youri Tielemans long range shot was fumbled by Jordan Pickford. despite more dominance the foxes had to be content with a point. so what 3 things did we learn about Leicester from this game.
Leicester City are a far better football team than Everton
This already sounds like some sort of footballing aestheticism, but there is a case in point here that needs to be addressed. Brendan Rodgers has devised an incredible set up of footballing talent at Leicester City with every one of his players taking to the pitch, comfortable on the ball and maximising the use of the space all over the pitch.
Carlo Ancelotti for this game and many others has devised a team extremely well organised that doesn’t allow teams to attack easily. The way he set up against Leicester was effective but astonishingly negative. The tactic was to deny Leicester any space in behind and ensure that Jordan Pickford was well protected. Leicester’s defenders were barely closed down up until Everton took the lead and after that it was non-existent. Dominic Calvert-Lewin as the front line leader was regularly seen sat 35 yards from his own goal as the furthest Everton player forward.
This tactic wouldn’t be so bad had a quick counter been built-in especially after the toffees had the advantage but they retreated further and further. Sometimes the Everton back line was sat as far back as the six yard box on free kicks. If this was a normal night at Goodison Park with 40,000 Toffees screaming i doubt they’d have let them get away with that level of negativity.
Leicester in contrast were slick and eager to play through the lines with quick movement and threaded accurate passing. As the game wore on they pressed hard down both wings with both full backs pushing Everton back deep. It’s somewhat ironic, then, that that the equalising goal came from Youri Tielemans shot outside the box that Jordan Pickford should really have saved. Despite Leicester’s dominance they could still have come away with nothing after some poor defending on corners saw Richarlison and Gomes squander good chances.
Vardy’s absence isn’t the only reason Leicester struggled to test Pickford
The easy assumption to make is that the currently absent Jamie Vardy would have made the difference. But this does a disservice to his Leicester City replacement Ayoze Perez who operated more as a false No.9 coming deep and collecting the ball in key areas. This was a necessary approach given Everton’s deep block and Perez worked tirelessly at his task.
Playing off the shoulder of Keane or Mina would have been tricky for Vardy and deep blocks have caused him most of his quiet games. Incidentally the last two games against Everton Vardy has been kept very quiet by the Toffees back line. Vardy has also been notably quiet in many of the game in the recent run.
Perez doesn’t have a great goalscoring record but his work here was to drag defenders out of position to enable midfield runners to find space to run into. Harvey Barnes was tricky again but frequently found Everton brick walls where he wanted to attack. Marc Albrighton is ever reliable but isn’t really the kind of player to make midfield runs. Cengiz Under may have been the more interesting option with his pace and trickery which he showed in his substitute appearance.
As good as Leicester City are, they do tend to want to walk the ball in the net, seeing long range shots as only occasionally necessary. There were frequent moments in this game when Foxes players were in the box and rather than trying to get a shot away looked for that perfect pass for the open goal finish. But given their recent joy at striking from the edge of the box in this game as well, it will be something they will need to consider. Although hipsters favourite attacking team Leeds United playing a deep block on Sunday is an unlikely occurrence they will need to be concerned with.
VAR has gone suspiciously quiet and yellow cards continue to baffle
What may have gone unnoticed by nearly everyone is how close to offside Everton’s goal was to being offside. Don’t you remember how the lines were drawn on the pitch – and don’t worry you’re not going crazy. The goal wasn’t shown on the replays and no colourful lines were drawn despite how close it looked (go and check my twitter feed if you want to see how close).
Many will pipe in at this point and proclaim how every goal is checked so that one must have been onside. If that is the case then it needs to be showed clearly like it has been all season. We’re all conspiracy theorists us football fans regardless of the colours we follow. By not showing a decision that was so close only gets those alarm bells going again. I’m not claiming that it even was offside, but i will claim that it wasn’t even checked, because we have no evidence to prove otherwise. In fact VAR has gone quiet in a lot of games all at once, very strange.
Finally a note for everyone’s favourite referee Mike Dean. He didn’t have a particularly bad game but like any ref his reaching for yellow cards defies any sensible logic or consistency. When Harvey Barnes was taken out by Mina on the edge of the box early on, i was certain a yellow would be forthcoming, but no nothing. With the first half drawing to a close, everyones favourite boy scout Richarlison hit the deck on the halfway line going nowhere dangerous.
Mike Dean obviously reached for his yellow for James Justin of course. Later in the second half Dominic Calvert-Lewin challenged Caglar Soyuncu high on the shin and nowhere near the ball. No yellow card and no common sense. I’m not having a go at Tranmere enthusiast Mr Dean but he might want to work out what constitutes a yellow before his next trip to ref a game, just to help us all out.