The delights of an East Midlands derby victory on a balmy Leicester evening on a Monday are few and far between. In fact, an East Midlands triumph has been a long time coming, well, a triumph of any sort has been a long time coming. But what other three other things did we learn?
James Maddison has entered the realms of elite
Early in the game Madders received the ball in the area and preceded to morph into Riyad Mahrez for City in 2015-2018. He jinked inside and sold crosses before feigning back onto his opposite foot and delivering an inch-perfect cross for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. This was how the game was from start to finish. Maddison demands the ball and provides a calming influence to the play when he receives it. His first goal had a massive slice of fortune, but when you cause panic in the opposition and make them turn in fear at your shots, you deserve it. The second goal saw him deliver an excellent raked pass to Jamie Vardy that opened up space before Harvey Barnes unleashed a glorious finish. The third goal was vintage Maddison, who is now becoming as dangerous as James Ward-Prowse on dead balls as he delivered a pinpoint goal off the post. Goal four was an excellent link-up with Patson Daka before the Zambian’s cheeky Zola-esque finish.
His play is now reminiscent of the once worshipped Algerian, with a range of passes matched by elite quality on the ball. He could still do with some more work on chasing back and helping out defensively, but so can many attack-minded players. He is now the first name on the Leicester City teamsheet with 19 goals and 13 assists since the start of last season, he’s a game changer and any manager in world football would love to call upon his talents. Smart managers at least.
Leicester City’s manager, players and fans showed lots of heart
The mentality of the club and the manager have definitely been called into question in recent weeks. Any whiff of danger and the players wilt like flowers in the rain, relinquishing leads at will and struggling to close games off. The character was what was needed and the players showed it in abundance, hammering into challenges, making brave passes, and not being afraid to make mistakes. This fed into the support, or was it the other way round?
The beautifully imagined tifo display of Wes Morgan kissing the Premier League trophy for all of the away followers to see was a bold move and could have looked very silly had the result gone the wrong way. But Union FS played an absolute blinder reminding many of us Leicester City fans what we are and where we have come from. That seemed to inspire the players with KDH, in particular, running his socks off and leading the charge against his most hated team. The team was excellent throughout and finally looked like a team with a clear identity. Brendan Rodgers kept his substitutions simple, changing like-for-like throughout and trusting in the game plan as Leicester never stopped chasing even at 4-0 to earn their first Premier League clean sheet for 12 matches.
There’s no place like home
The confidence the team showed exuded into the stands with some of the normally quiet fans enjoying getting out of their seats and joining in with the fun early on as Leicester ran riot. I screamed so loud that my good friend’s ear nearly burst (apologies Cameron). Later in the second half as we all regained our energy, the Nottingham Forest fans produced a drone of a chant which i couldn’t hear from SK4 admittedly so we translated it back at them with our own version for 15 minutes which seemed to quiet them down. It’s all good banter from both sets of fans and sweet revenge for the FA Cup hammering we received back in February.
It got me to thinking though, when games are like that and the atmosphere is cooking up, there is no place I would rather be than watching our amazing team play at the King Power Stadium. It was the first time I had been to a game for over a month and events in my own personal life made this game and victory feel a bit more poignant. It does us all good to get down to the stadium and blow off some steam and enjoy our place of worship as much as possible. Since we were last at home it was announced that the stadium expansion has been green-lit by the local council meaning an extra 8,000 seats will be available for Leicester City supporters. That will give us all more opportunities to bring our loved ones and family down and experience nights like this together. Nights that will live long in the memory.