Leicester City’s winning run came to an abrupt end at Old Trafford on Sunday afternoon. With a Marcus Rashford brace and a Jadon Sancho second-half goal being enough to roll over the Foxes. Here are three things that Foxes of Leicester learned from the defeat.
New-look Leicester City back-four needs time
With this iteration of Sunday’s backline only starting their third game together as a unit it would be extremely unwise to assign the lack of cohesiveness to anything but a lack of time playing with each other. Especially when it comes to the partnership of Wout Faes and Harry Souttar.
The first goal was slightly concerning because Faes misplacing a simple build-up pass and then being overly aggressive in trying to then press after his error. Leaving Rashford copious amounts to run in behind the Belgian to open the scoring – initiating City’s downfall. Given more playing time together, it would be highly likely that Souttar recognizes how Faes will react to this type of situation and in turn step up with his partner thus would have resulted in Rashford drifting offside.
It may be quite harsh to judge these players against a side with elite movement, offensive positional rotations and a forward such as Rashford seemingly in the form of his life. It was always going to be a difficult ask to keep the Red Devils quiet however what City fans can take away from the endeavour was the 20 plus minutes before the goal where both centre-halves looked composed and supplied wonderful progressive passes starting many LCFC attacks.
The mental fragility is still embedded in the squad
When it’s good it can be great. But when it’s bad it can be cataclysmic. Sunday’s performance completely epitomised this dynamic within the side. The first half performance in which Leicester were extremely unfortunate to be behind due to being the vastly superior side, also thanks to David De Gea making some exceptional saves. It was very promising and looked as if last weeks showing at home to Tottenham had transferred over to the trip to Old Trafford.
The Foxes fought off the early charge of the home side and then started to dictate tempo and pick apart a “Casemiro-less” United side. Kelechi Iheanacho and James Maddison being at the heart of this dragging players like Lisandro Martinez out of position and exploiting the space in which Fred and Marcel Sabitzer struggled to occupy effectively. However, the second half was a completely different story – or cataclysmic.
Once more, United came out of the traps with high intensity but on this occasion City couldn’t grasp any once of control back into the contest. But it wasn’t just the fact that the Red Devils stepped it up a gear in the second period. It was more of the case that Leicester had reverted back into the side that started the season with one point from their first seven games.
Panic overtook the majority of the side and any amount of confidence that was instilled, completely drained. It was not just the harsh reality of the second goal – I will not be going into the complete farce that was the officiating in the contest, as it generally counter-productive and papers of the cracks of problems that you have control over.
But it’s the fact that the second was inevitable with the way in which the team had imploded and had no recourse to counteract this collapse. Misplaced pass after misplaced pass and no protection from the midfield. Allowed sustained attacks for Erik ten Hag’s and unmarked runners into the area which they capitalised on as a well coached side would. A complete capitulation. This is very concerning.
The first summer signing needs to be a new No.1
Despite somewhat regaining some of the club’s and the fans confidence after a really shaky start to the campaign. It is very evident that Danny Ward is not a Premier League No.1. A brilliant second-choice? Perhaps. But the necessary experiment of Ward as a number one is in all essence, over. The contrast in shot stopping between De Gea and Ward was astounding.
The last point really demonstrates the difference between where the two sides are in the table. That isn’t to say Ward should be expected to save any of the goals that the Foxes conceded, but in comparison very few would have expected De Gea to save either the Iheanacho header or the Harvey Barnes one-on-one. A new ‘keeper is vital if Leicester are wishing to progress with this proposed rebuild of the squad.