On Wednesday night, Leicester City Football Club dropped two points at Ashton Gate Stadium. The Foxes were competing against a certainly beatable Bristol City side. As a matter of fact, the visiting team from Leicestershire actually had the match in the bag, as they say. Although the usual predictable disarray eventually transpired. Unconfidence enveloped players and seemed to play out amid confused messages from LCFC head coach Marti Cifuentes.
Trust me, when I declare that it was easy to forecast the King Power outfit conceding an equaliser - I mean it. I almost switched off the contest on television around 75 minutes because I knew exactly where the situation was heading. But more on that later. Following the final whistle, as the Robins obtained the draw, City's boss spoke to media about the capitulation.
The questions Leicester's Blue Army fan base demand answers to are 'why City are only a force to be reckoned with for one half of football?'. Is fitness an issue? Is there a lack of concentration on the field of play? Is the Catalonian out of his depth on Filbert Way? Inertia was the unfortunate feeling in the second half. Could Cifuentes be accused of half-time inaction too?
To that end, the former Queens Park Rangers manager acknowledged the same old factors as his men seemingly surrendered to pressure and the fear of losing their lead, and subsequently ultimately losing the fixture. And in turn losing progress, or losing more ground in the English Football League Championship division.
Leicester City gaffer Marti Cifuentes is aware of the one half problem - yet he can't do anything about it
Cifuentes definitely talks a good game, but his speeches to the group must be passive or inferred as acquiescent to the athletes' will and desire. In other words, this generally inconsistent and yielding bunch of professionals require a tougher motivator to whip them into shape.
"Obviously, the second goal helped us to get an even bigger advantage, and then we spoke at half-time about the need to keep pushing, to make sure we could score the third one. Then, probably, the game would be over, but it's unfortunate that after just one minute, the development of the second half changed. I think we panicked a little bit, we dropped too much, and credit to Bristol in the second half, they did so well.”
“We spoke about certain details at half-time and we conceded from one of those details, so it’s something we need to learn from and do much better because we know there’s still a lot of games, a lot of time, to be played."