Leicester’s maturity as other top clubs show fragility

Leicester City piled yet more misery on Jurgen Klopp’s men with an emphatic late comeback to send the foxes second.

After being second best for much of the game and trailing to a Mohamed Salah goal, Leicester initiated one of the most unlikely restorations in the final 12 minutes of a fascinating King Power clash.

After several VAR check stoppages James Maddison was awarded an equalising goal direct from a free kick. Then calamity struck as Alisson’s botched clearance led to Jamie Vardy walking the ball into an open net.

With Liverpool’s backline in chaos, Harvey Barnes waltzed past Alexander-Arnold to open up his body and deliver a sucker punch third goal and potentially end Liverpool’s dwindling title hopes.

So what did Foxes of Leicester learn from another victory against the so-called top six?

This is a more mature Leicester City and a more fragile Liverpool

For much of this game on a cold sunny afternoon in East Midlands, Leicester were second best. Passes were not moved quickly enough, aggression was in short supply and Liverpool dominated up until the last twenty minutes. This is not an unfamiliar story against the Merseysiders particularly at home where it seems that the foxes seem to sit back and watch in awe at the mighty reds.

But the mighty reds are not so mighty anymore and whereas last season the game would have calmly played out to a comfortable Liverpool win, this season things are different. The foxes maintained calmness in possession and maturity in their positions even after going a goal down.

They pressed in the right areas and stuck to their game plan. Strangely Klopp’s team lacked basic positional discipline and dare i say it started become arrogant at their ability over their opponents. Klopp also failed to deal with Brendan Rodgers switching tactics to a diamond midfield in the last 20 which enabled more effective play through the lines and Harvey Barnes push to a more central forward role.

Knowing full well that Liverpool have a penchant for conceding goals late in games the Foxes stuck to their task and it paid off remarkably.

Liverpool collapsed in spectacular fashion and Leicester were fortunate that Alisson especially crashed and burned so easily for Vardy’s second goal. Although the Reds could argue that Leicester were lucky, they still afforded Rodgers men several chances on goal.

The woodwork was tested on more than one occasion and Vardy on another day potentially having a hat trick. Alisson, despite being remembered for a terrible mistake, also needs to be commended for an amazing save late on.

Leicester are still smarting from last season and can definitely play better; yet this outcome provides evidence that they are growing into a stronger outfit than 2019/2020 team. While other ‘big seven’ teams – the fairly caption – stutter with fragility, the Foxes have shown exemplary maturity.