Leicester City completed an unwanted statistic to Mikel Arteta’s top-of-the-table Gunners following this defeat. They have now lost five games in a row to Arsenal for the first time since the 1930s, it was hardly a surprising result but there is a sense that things didn’t go as planned.
Way too much respect being shown
Arsenal have been a fantastic team this term and deservedly sit as the best team in England. But recent results have faltered and they have been much easier to rattle. A defeat at Everton and draw at home to Brentford was followed by a defeat to Championship rivals Manchester City before a very fortunate win at Aston Villa. The Gunners arrived at King Power Stadium having not kept a clean sheet for five Premier League games, they were fragile.
Leicester City arrived into this match following impressive wins at Villa and at home to Spurs before a strong first half at Manchester United quickly turned sour. This would have been a game that Arteta’s men would not have been relishing. So it was odd for Leicester City to be so reserved in their approach to this game. They stood off their opponents and were desperately focusing on keeping shape so as to not leave gaps through the middle. Tactically in the first half, they contained the opposition but never came close to causing them any serious problems.
They half-pressed when Arsenal held the ball and yet on the few occasions that the foxes held possession they quickly gave it away or were muscled off the ball by eager red and white shirts. This was not a game where City’s timid approach would benefit them. They thankfully had a VAR decision go in their favour as Ben White’s holding of Danny Ward’s hand was key to stopping him from making a proper claim on the ball before Leandro Trossard fired in. At halftime, it was goalless, and AFC hadn’t really troubled Ward’s goal.
Slow to react to change the game
At half-time many of us in the ground were discussing whether it had been a good first half or not; some spectators credited the team’s containment strategy and others frustrated at the lack of attacking flair. Following the game, Brendan Rodgers made this admission about the first-half performance:
"“First half, defensively, we were too passive, which surprised me. Our idea, like it is most weeks, was to be really aggressive, but we were too passive, and that ended up us being passive when we had the ball.”"
The man that matters wasn’t happy, but sent the same players back out for the second half with nothing more than stern advice. Thirty seconds into the second period, a meek Leicester City had missed three opportunities to aggressively press and tackle before Gabriel Martinelli raced through and slotted home what turned out to be the winning goal. We then sat through 17 more minutes of the same passive football that Rodgers later bemoaned.
It’s increasingly baffling and predictable to see the Northern Irishman wait until the hour mark to make changes to the game when they are needed much sooner. To prove that point further, when Youri Tielemans and Jamie Vardy entered the pitch on 62 minutes, the Foxes pressed from the front and won the ball back in dangerous areas giving the home faithful a few moments of excitement. This quelled Arsenal’s attacking threat completely. Frequently Brendan Rodgers keeps to type and makes substitutions at exactly the same time in every match: he let Leicester go 3-0 down at Old Trafford before changing the side around the hour mark. Either he is worried about upsetting the players or wants to give them all 60 minutes for an unknown reason. There are five subs permitted now – there’s no reason to hold back.
Too nice everywhere
Winning football matches in the EPL can be a murky business, until refereeing is sorted properly you have to play the flawed game that is presented to you. Leicester don’t get angry enough, they don’t tactically foul enough and they certainly don’t scream for decisions at the ref enough! See Wout Faes kicked on his knee last week for this lack of intensity. Arsenal’s tactic from 70 minutes onwards was that of time-wasting to levels that haven’t been seen in a long time. The referee pointed to his watch to the paying custodians, one can only presume because it was a recent gift from a loved one as it had no relevance to the minimal injury time he added on.
For Leicester City to progress into a new era they need to stop meekly wasting away through fixtures and be nastier, especially against the well-protected big boys. They could well have done some early time-wasting of their own in the first half if not purely to wind up their emotional opponents who are desperately trying to win the title and arguably had more riding on this game than LCFC. Martinelli could have been fouled in the build-up to his goal, a player could have taken a yellow.
City are too nice, too soft and not nasty enough to be a team anywhere near the top of the table in this current guise. Despite Rodgers telling us all that he likes his teams to be aggressive – we rarely ever see anything resembling that characteristic from his team. Like the man himself, Leicester are a mild-mannered, respectful and pleasant club. Hardly one to fear or trouble the status quo.