Down to the bare bones
Games in the Championship come thick and fast particularly at this time of the year. Not surprisingly, the amount of football being played in the second-tier tests even the best squads. Bristol, for instance, were missing three key players for the game with the Foxes on Wednesday evening.
Leicester, too, are struggling with injuries. Normally, Marti Cifuentes likes to make up to four changes for midweek matches in order to freshen things up. He was unable to do so for the Bristol encounter, however, because of the increasing list of absences. Jeremy Monga, Aaron Ramsey and Boubakary Soumare have all been ruled out through injury, to add to the long-term unavailability of Victor Kristensen, Caleb Okoli and Harry Souttar. With Harry Winks also excluded after apparently falling out with the Leicester boss, the Foxes are down to the bare bones. The result was that only one change – Hamza Choudhury coming in for Ricardo Pereira – was made from the side that beat Derby County at the weekend.
The poor second half performance on Wednesday night is perhaps partly at least a consequence of the growing injury list. They looked leggy and tired.
Same old story
On paper, a draw against a decent side might be regarded as a positive result. Once again, though, the Foxes were unable to put together a 90-minute performance. In the first half, Leicester were comfortably the better side, scoring twice – a Jordan Ayew penalty and a Bobby De Cordova strike following great work from Abdul Fatawa. Bristol looked poor.
The second half couldn’t have been more different. Leicester were, and I consider my words carefully, absolutely abysmal. They conceded a goal after a minute of the restart and defended deep for the remainder of the half conceding an equaliser with five minutes to go. They were second to the ball, gave it away constantly, failed to close down wide players and offered next to nothing going forward. The drop-off was huge. Bristol could quite easily have won all three points.
That’s five away midweek games without a win for the Foxes this season – three draws and two defeats.
Promotion hopes receding
After the encouraging victory at Pride Park on Saturday, there was hope amongst the club’s supporters that the Foxes could add to it with a positive result against Bristol City. On the face of it, it was a decent point. But the result was deeply worrying. There is still a long way to go in this exhausting Championship season, but even the most optimistic member of the Blue Army will struggle to justify the claim that Leicester can mount a convincing promotion push.
After the midweek fixtures, the Foxes are now in 13th place in the Championship table. Whilst they are only three points outside the play-off places, they are now a sobering 11 points behind second-placed Middlesborough. With the expected points deduction to come, promotion it must be said, is growing more and more unlikely.
How far all of this is the manager’s fault is open to question. Certainly, many Leicester fans were bewildered by the substitutions. With the team struggling to cope with Bristol’s intensity in the second half, why take off your most combative midfielder, Jordan James, and why not give Ricardo Pereira a run out for the last quarter? The apparent lack of fitness of the players, too, must be held at the manager’s door.