Leicester City 1 v 2 Middlesbrough
Post match analysis by Stuart Dawkins
Maresca has been consistent in saying that the season is not over, that winning the Championship is not certain and that there would be many challenges ahead. Today, Middlesbrough proved the wisdom of that statement with a disciplined performance that resulted in them doing the double over City.
The match was preceded by a Tifo hailing Leicester as the Ace of Clubs. That’s a valid claim most weeks currently but, sadly, was not to be the case today.
Leicester lined up with their usual first team, it was therefore odd that as the match progressed their play became far more disjointed than usual.
Middlesbrough were wearing their all-white third strip, presumably for marketing reasons. The first sixty seconds saw a very unusual sight for the King Power this season. In that period, both sides had their striker flagged for offside chasing long through balls.
After that rather odd flurry, matters progressed in a more normal manner. City had more of the ball. Boro, however, were really well drilled. Their back five played a little higher than the norm, and the gap between that five and the screening midfielders was as close as I’ve seen this season. They kept this up for the entire match which was a credit to Michael Carrick, his coaching team and his squad.
Centre-back, Clarke, was rightly booked for a very late challenge on Pereira after fewer than three minutes, and committed a similar challenge fifteen minutes later, but that one was probably, just, not worthy of a yellow.
About half of the fans in the stadium thought that Vestergaard had scored after five minutes, his header from one of many looping crosses in fact going into the side netting.
The lack of space between Boro’s defensive lines meant that City played the ball wide over and over again. Mavididi was almost always double-teamed and created little. Fatawu was more productive, but with the exception of the Vestergaard header and one from Daka, they were dealt will well by the visiting defenders. Ayling, in particular, prevented any threat from crosses to the far post.
In the 24th minute, Faes committed himself rashly on the half-way line, but did not get the ball, which was passed behind him and Boro were through with two players against one. They finished the goal in textbook style with Silvera passing the ball into an empty net.
Ten minutes later, City were lucky not to go two behind when, from their own corner, the ball broke for another two-on-one break, but this time Pereira managed to get a toe to the crossed ball to prevent another likely tap-in.
As half-time approached, Boro doubled their lead. Yet another sloppy pass by a Leicester player near the half-way line led to a less clear-cut break, but the through ball and resulting shot by Azaz resulted in a goal. On the balance of play, on the number of crosses and shots, and doubtless on many other statistics too, being two goals behind was harsh on Leicester. In truth, though, City had produced very little that looked like being a goal and Boro’s quick thrusts had been well played and well completed.
The half time score cried out for a change from City. The change that Maresca chose to make was quite an odd one – taking off Mavididi to be replaced by Tom Cannon on the left wing. Mavididi had done very little, and I can only assume that by bringing on Cannon he felt that there might be someone more likely to get a head onto those back-post crosses that had led to nothing in the first half.
City huffed and puffed but they were not playing that well. With Maresca’s style of play, City fans have got used to passes occasionally not working due to being played against an opposing team’s press. Today, there was little of that, but many more passes were simply mis-placed, or passes made between two players clearly not on the same wavelength – the ball going short but the runner going long, or vice versa. Unusually, the likes of KD-H, Winks and Pereira were all culprits.
The clocked ticked on, and City – despite adding to the tally of crosses and shots – threatened little. Cannon barely had a kick, as everything City did went down the right flank, but the quality of passing and crossing was not even as good as it had been in the first half.
Maresca’s second substitution was also a surprise, replacing Fatawu with Younus. City were now in a match which had resulted in more crosses than any I can remember, but were playing with non-wingers on the flanks. I am sure there must have been a point to this, but it was not at all clear what that point was.
After 63 minutes, McAteer and Vardy came on for KD-H and Daka, McAteer taking the right-wing role. This change did liven City up somewhat, but the near-chances were still being well dealt with by the well-drilled Boro defence.
It was the 80th minute before City had a decent clear-cut chance, McAteer crossing low for Vardy, of all people, to fire over from 6-yards when most might have expected him to score. Cannon then crossed low for Vestergaard to fire an even better chance over the bar from close range. It felt as though that was going to be that, when from nothing Cannon scooped a ball over the Boro defenders leaving Vardy to chase though behind the defensive line for City’s first shot on target in the match, and a goal.
With five minutes plus stoppage time to go, City finally started to play with real urgency. This was helped Praet being replaced by Albrighton, meaning that there were now two wingers on the pitch. Albrighton, as ever, showed his ability to play good quality crosses and City’s nearly-chances looked to be better ones. But the visitors’ defence continued to deal with it all with quite some skill, and the match finished at 1-2.
City had 24 shots and more than 40 crosses, yet only two shots on target. Boro had just five shots, with two on target. As often in football (it being, as is often said, a game of small margins) on another day that level of statistical dominance might have led to a Leicester win. Today, however, Boro deserved the result. Their plan was executed near-perfectly.
On a weekend when Leeds, Southampton and Ipswich all won, it seemed that almost every Leicester player had a not-as-good-as-usual game (and, maybe harshly, that comment might extend to Maresca’s substitutions and formation changes too). Let’s hope that all of them being off-form for the same match has got It out of the system, and normal service can be resumed immediately. The game against Leeds will certainly be a tough test of that. City are still nine points clear of second place and eleven points clear of third – that is still a great achievement. But it ain’t over yet.
Leicester City
Hermansen, Ricardo Pereira, Faes, Vestergaard, Justin, Winks, Dewsbury-Hall, Fatawu, Praet, Mavididi, Daka
Substitutes
Coady, Doyle, Vardy, Albrighton, Choudhury, Cannon, Akgün, McAteer, Stolarczyk
Middlesbrough
Glover, Ayling, McNair, van den Berg, Clarke, Engel, McGree, Azaz, Barlaser, O’Brien, Silvera
Substitutes
Dieng, Hoppe, Gilbert, Dijksteel, Forss, Greenwood, Nkrumah, McCabe, Woolston