Falling off a cliff
With two consecutive victories, it looked like the Foxes were back on track. A dreadful result and performance against the Saints, though, reopened debate about the team’s promotion credentials and the manager’s future. Those Leicester fans who braved the whole game at St. Mary’s were not slow in criticising the players at the end of the game. 15th in the Championship table is simply not good enough for a club who were playing in the Premier League last season.
It was in this context that the Foxes took on Sheffield United, a club who have struggled this season but who have just come off two consecutive 3-0 victories. The result was effectively decided in the first half. As at Southampton, some catastrophic defending led to the conceding of three goals. For the first, City had ample opportunity to clear before the ball fell nicely to Tom Cannon who scored against his former club. For the second and third, there was a failure to close down in-rushing United players both of whom had time to knock the ball into the net. At the other end of the pitch, Leicester offered very little.
A much-improved performance in the second half, assisted by substitutes Oliver Skipp, Boubakary Soumare and Jordan Ayew, almost got City back in the game (Stephy Mavididi and Jordan James netting) but another defeat raises serious doubts about the future of Marti Cifuentes as well as the direction of the club.
Not good enough
Pundits regularly trot out that Leicester have a talented squad of players who ought, at the very least, to be competing at the top end of the Championship table. This, in my view, is lazy journalism.
It is no accident that the Foxes find themselves in a bottom-half position. There are too many weaknesses in the team, many of which were on display against the Blades. The defence is fragile, the midfield ponderous and the forward line non-existent. Probably five or six City players would struggle to be first choice starters in most Championship teams. Even Abdul Fatawu, excellent at the start of the season, is struggling. That’s one goal in 14 games for him. There are the exceptions. Jordan James impressed again on Saturday as did Mavididi in the second half but the team seems inacapable of putting together a 90 minute performance.
A warning
I’ve written before that the biggest threat to a football club is not anger and protest but apathy. For the fourth home game in succession, the attendance at the King Power Stadium dipped below 30,000, even though the Blades brought a sizeable following. By the time the third goal went in on Saturday, Foxes’ fans were leaving in droves. By the start of the second half, the ground was half empty. It is a very visible sign of a club in trouble.