On an afternoon notable for the minute’s silence before kick-off, the story of Leicester’s 6-2 capitulation at the hands of Tottenham was told by the noise across the subsequent 90 minutes.
There was the point where Leicester fans chanted “How **** must you be, we’re winning away” after their early opener, Youri Tielemans’ retaken penalty.
There was the point when Leicester’s defence headed away a Tottenham corner, and those same supporters ironically cheered their side finally managing to defend a set-piece properly.
And, finally, there were the taunts late on from the Tottenham supporters towards Brendan Rodgers, telling him he would be sacked in the morning.
That must now be a realistic consideration — if not in the morning, then at some point in the next fortnight. This international break comes at a handy time if Leicester’s board are looking for a change. Rodgers, who was dismissed from his Liverpool job in 2015 at the start of an international break, will know the situation. “It’s probably come at a good time to reset everything,” he said, slightly ominously.
6-2 was harsh on Leicester, because the scale of the defeat was exaggerated by a couple of remarkable Son Heung-min goals, before he completed his hattrick in the closing stages. And yet 6-2 also felt on the cards from an early stage, despite Leicester going ahead, and despite Leicester going in 2-2 at the break.
Their first two concessions came from set-pieces, an area Leicester struggled at throughout last season. They nearly conceded a third from a set-piece, when Wilfried Ndidi turned into his own net, although after a long deliberation, the referee adjudged that Danny Ward had been fouled.
Ndidi, one of the Premier League’s outstanding defensive midfielders a couple of years ago, looked wretched here — asked to cover too much space in a side lacking compactness, certainly, but that doesn’t explain how easily he was caught in possession by Rodrigo Bentancur for the third goal. In fairness, it arguably wasn’t as embarrassing as Boubakary Soumare being completely outpaced by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg for Son’s hattrick goal.
Rodgers’ problem isn’t simply that Leicester are bad — although they are — but that they’re bad at all the collective things. Their defensive shape is consistently terrible. They can’t defend set-pieces. There’s no obvious pattern in attack.
Their promising moments come from individual brilliance. James Maddison scored a superb goal here, just as he scored a superb goal against Southampton, and his crossing towards Patson Daka was also very dangerous. But Maddison feels like an outstanding No 10 in a bad side, a Georgi Kinkladze or a Juninho.
Leicester have scored eight times in seven games this season, but as well as two Maddison individual efforts, there’s been a Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall long-ranger against Brentford, a comedy own goal thanks to Arsenal, and the re-taken penalty here. In other words, Leicester aren’t really creating chances. Their xG figure in an attacking sense is the second-worst in the league, behind Bournemouth. Their xGA figure isn’t as bad as their simple goals against figure, although that’s partly as Ward has looked somewhat hapless at times, and has conceded goals he shouldn’t have, which can’t be taken as much of a positive.
A common feature has been Rodgers’ inability to use his bench effectively this season. They looked home and dry on the opening day against Brentford, 2-0 up. Then Thomas Frank changed shape and changed the game, Rodgers couldn’t respond, and it finished 2-2. That set the tone. No manager has made fewer substitutions per game than Rodgers this season, and it felt fitting that, at Tottenham, Antonio Conte brought on Yves Bissouma and switched from 3-4-3 to 3-5-2, and Bissouma immediately instigated the move for Spurs’ fourth goal. All of Spurs’ final three goals, of course, came from a substitute, Son.
OK, so Rodgers can’t introduce the current joint-holder of the Golden Boot like Conte can. But he can introduce the Golden Boot winner from two years beforehand, Jamie Vardy. His bench here also featured Kelechi Iheanacho, Marc Albrighton, Ayoze Perez and Dennis Praet, who have all previously looked like good top-half players. Others, like Soumare, Luke Thomas and Daniel Amartey are decent enough squad options too.
This is not a bad squad. For all the discussion about Leicester’s lack of activity in the transfer market, ultimately they only lost two key players in the summer. One, Kasper Schmeichel, is a big miss, but losing your goalkeeper doesn’t explain such outfield disorganisation. The other, Wesley Fofana, played only seven games last season because of injury, so his absence shouldn’t be considered a novel issue.
Rodgers partly explained Leicester’s underperformance by pointing to some tricky opponents in the first seven games. “There’s no doubt, in the seven games we’ve had had a tough start, after the summer we’ve had, we’ve had Tottenham away, Chelsea away, Arsenal away, and Manchester United at home.”
Which is fair enough, but they’ve actually been given gifts in a couple of those games. Chelsea were down to 10 men for over an hour, when Conor Gallagher was dismissed at 0-0, and Leicester still lost 2-1. Davinson Sanchez’s crazy challenge on James Justin gave Leicester a one-goal head start here, and they lost 6-2.
Rodgers is essentially a very good manager, and even if he leaves Leicester should be considered to have done a very good job at four straight clubs — Swansea, Liverpool, Celtic and Leicester. Few managers can point to that track record.
But there’s always been a sense that his sides have had some level of mental fragility. It was an extraordinary achievement for his Liverpool side, 33-1 outsiders at the start of 2013-14, to have even been in contention for the title. But once favourites, they blew it.
Similarly, twice with Leicester City, Rodgers’ side haven’t been expected to finish in the top four, but in an extremely strong position have then faded late on. Even the FA Cup triumph in 2021, something that Leicester will always remember as an outstanding day in their history, and Rodgers will always cherish as perhaps his most famous moment, was a touch fortunate. Leicester were awful on the day, and bailed out by Tielemans’ stunning long-range drive, Schmeichel’s heroics and a late VAR decision.
You don’t become a bad manager overnight, and the likelihood is that if Leicester keep faith with Rodgers, he will guide them to survival. But the fact we’re even talking about survival illustrates how desperate the situation has become.
Rodgers is a good manager, Leicester have a good squad, and both will be fine without one another. Together, however, things just aren’t working out, and Rodgers seems to accept it. “The owners will do what they need to do,” he said, which almost felt like he was encouraging them.
The Athletic
<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/LCFC?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#LCFC</a> <a href="https://t.co/soVYdWhPsX">pic.twitter.com/soVYdWhPsX</a></p>— Fabrizio Romano (@FabrizioRomano) <a href="https://twitter.com/FabrizioRomano/status/1571223415217950721?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 17, 2022</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
