Wolves 0-0 Leicester: 3 things learned; why it’s a well earned point

Leicester City battled hard at Molineux for a well earned point to keep their excellent away record on track

With chances at a premium and both teams decimated with injuries it was unsurprising that the two Midlands teams played out for a lacklustre affair. Neves could well have put the Black Country team ahead instead of blazing over, whilst late on both Fabio Silva and Jamie Vardy had chances to win it. So what are the 3 things we learned from Leicester City’s latest away points.

Wolves 0 – 0 Leicester City is becoming expected

Predicting this game as a 0-0 shouldn’t have been a surprise. This is the fourth time in the last seven meetings that these teams have shared a stalemate and the sixth time in seven that Wolves have failed to score against the foxes. With Nuno Espirito Santos’s men missing the fantastic Raul Jimenez and still coping with Diogo Jota’s departure its unsurprising that their focus is mainly on defence.

When Leicester City were able to advance in forward areas they were sometimes met with a back six to navigate through. Wolves were able to break in numbers but lacked a cutting edge up front. Adama Traore’s battle with James Justin ebbed and flowed with the Foxes left back giving as good as he got whilst Leicester’s back line held strong. Chances were at a premium for starting striker Kelechi Iheanacho and Leicester were mainly reduced to shots from long range until Jamie Vardy somehow headed a good chance narrowly wide at the death. The next time these two meet they will have been waiting for over two and a half years for a goal from open play.

Recent clean sheets hide defensive frailties

Ever wondered why all Leicester fans have a panic attack whenever they concede a corner? As a back four Leicester are a solid team and more often than not deal with opposition teams comfortably. But consecutive clean sheets from Fulham and Wolves hides the consistent but still occasional switching off at corner kicks.

Today Wolves managed eight corners and twice big chances eventually came to them and mainly because of the ineptitude of the zonal marking. The first time Ruben Neves blazed over after being left completely unmarked on the six yard box from a position he should have buried. The second time after a corner had been cleared the lack of organisation led to Fabio Silva being left all alone and forcing Kasper Schmeichel into a fine save. Leicester are undoubtedly missing the aerial presence of both Wesley Fofana and Wilfred Ndidi. But unless Leicester learn how to deal with corner kicks soon they are going to concede more goals and lose more points.

The welcome return of Vardy and reasonable criticism

All Leicester City fans will breathe a huge sigh of relief that their talisman is back even if it was for only the last thirty minutes. He will need time to adapt given his recent operation and hopefully his impingement will not resurface. On his return he wasn’t given much room to adapt with a stubborn Wolves defence allowing little room. But in injury time he managed to wriggle clear of his defender and meet an excellent Marc Albrighton cross and put his header narrowly wide.

I’ve spoken before about our supporters obsession with our star striker bordering on the unhealthy and it impacts the way we treat and place expectations on his future replacements. Personally I think Vardy should be hitting the target. But it’s one of those things that could happen to anyone. The point I made on social media may have been misinterpreted as a dig at our star striker.

The point I was more interested in making was how would Kelechi Iheanacho or Ayoze Perez have been treated had they have done the exact same thing at the end of the game? Given the amount of abuse both of them receive on a regular basis i would argue there would have been lots of nasty comments and further criticism of their performances. But why? If it’s the same incident why should we change how we judge our expectation levels of our strikers?

Whoever misses the chance at the end needs to put it at the very least on target whether they’ve scored 150 goals or none. The answer back to that i’ve had constantly is that Perez or Iheanacho wouldn’t even have even got on the end of the cross to make the miss. Which again seems very harsh and merely highlights a microcosm of this Vardy obsession.

Although he is back now, very soon we’ll have to face up to life without Jamie Vardy and i dread to think how much hammering his replacements will have to endure both on social media and when we eventually return to the King Power. The good thing is a huge amount of the Leicester City faithful understand that they’re human beings and will thrive with the right backing whether its Jamie Vardy, Kelechi Iheanacho or whoever.