A tall order
This hasn’t been a good season for the Old Trafford club. Indeed, the last few seasons have been a struggle. Nevertheless, as one of the biggest clubs in the land, they still remain a scalp. Getting a result against them remains difficult for clubs like Leicester. Indeed, coming into this match, United have already beaten the Foxes three times this season, once in the league and twice in cup competitions.
City’s long-term record against United tells its own story. Since the inception of the Premier League in the 1992/3 season, the Foxes have played 35 league games against the club from Old Trafford. They have won only four of them, losing 22 having scored 31 goals against Manchester’s 73. That’s 21 points out of a possible 105. Including six cup encounters and one Community Shield match, Leicester have lost 27 times out of 42 games played against the reds.
A pivotal result
Enzo Maresca said after the encounter at Stamford Bridge that he was surprised by Leicester’s formation – a back three and three front men – and it took Chelsea a while to get used to it. There was no such surprise for United given that Ruud van Nistelrooy made it pretty clear he would play the same way against them.
Whilst the formation was to remain the same, there was scope for personnel changes within it. Jordan Blackwell suggested the possibility of replacing Luke Thomas with Ricardo Pereira, Woyo Coulibaly with Victor Kristensen, Harry Winks for Boubakary Soumare, and Patson Daka with Facundo Buonanotte. In the event, the Leicester boss made no changes from the side defeated at Stamford Bridge. The retention of Thomas was perhaps understandable. As FoL reported, he had a decent match against Chelsea. The same cannot be said for Kristensen who has endured a torrid time at club level culminating in him losing his place in the Danish squad.
With Wolves surging nine points ahead of the Foxes after victory over Southampton on Saturday, it seemed that Leicester couldn’t afford to lose against United. The fact that they did so surely now spells the end of hope that some kind of great escape is possible.
It was a familiar outcome. Leicester huffed and puffed, created three reasonable chances but scored none of them, whilst clinical United scored three, two in the second half, had one disallowed for offside and Christian Eriksen hit the bar with a terrific shot. In total, United had 18 shots to Leicester’s 11 with five on target compared to the home side’s three.
Should van Nistelrooy be sacked?
It seems unlikely now that the Leicester boss will lose his job. But should he be given the push? He can rightly claim that he inherited a poor squad of players and was unable to add to it in January. However, he now has one of the worst managerial records in Premier League history. The failure to score a home goal in the last six home games has never happened before in the club’s history, and is somewhat ironic given the Dutchman’s status as a legendary Premier League marksman.
Perhaps more tellingly, his team has no discernible identity, he does little to motivate the team standing motionless on the touchline and his decision-making is suspect. Against United, for instance, he took too long to make changes. Patson Daka, who had another terrible game, should have been substituted at half time. And when changes were made at the hour mark, he took off Soumare, who was, on the night, the Foxes best player.
The Foxes must now focus their efforts on preparing for the Championship with or without van Nistelrooy. Some change at the top is clearly necessary to placate an increasingly hostile and dispirited fan base.