Leicester City 1 v 2 Blackburn Rovers
Report by Stuart Dawkins
In his pre-match interviews, Brendan Rodgers emphasised that Blackburn would not be easy opponents, pointing out their strong form in the Championship and their style of play. Those of us who were at the Foxes Trust AGM at City’s Seagrave training complex on Monday night accidentally bumped into Brendan as we were touring the site. He graciously gave us a good ten minutes of conversation in his office covering a number of topics, and reinforcing the same message about the match which was to take place the following day.
These predictions proved to be true. Blackburn were tough opponents, and they won.
The team selected by Rodgers included a number of players not part of the regular starting eleven: Iversen in goal, Amartey, Soumaré, Thomas and – arguably – Vardy. That is understandable, top level football is a squad game these days and competitive matches such as this give a chance for players to show what they can do … more of that later. The other notable feature was the first start for Pereira as he returns to fitness after his long injury.
Before kick-off, there was a minute of applause in memory of John Motson, which reflected the genuine affection so many fans held for him. The crowd included a good number of people who do not regularly attend matches, including families with children, which is always a pleasing feature of Cup games. The fact that the stadium was nowhere near full might suggest that ticket pricing was not quite pitched correctly, although the fact that all FA Cup matches were available on live UK TV will also have had an impact.
City started the match quite brightly. Blackburn were consistent in building play from the back and for the first 15 minutes it looked as though the increased speed of Premier League opposition might catch them out. City created a number of chances in that period, with the best of them producing an excellent double save from Blackburn keeper, Pears. Things were looking fairly solid and Soumaré was making a number of decent forward passes.
Following that lively start, however, things deteriorated. The game was played in a downpour of rain and both sets of players were guilty of mis-weighting passes and of slipping. This made for a match which was probably “entertaining for a neutral supporter”, but one that was frustrating to watch as a fan. The key difference was that City’s unforced errors more often took place in dangerous, defensive areas and Blackburn’s typically did not.
In the 18th minute, Amartey gave the ball away and Iversen made a tremendous save to prevent the unmarked Dolan from scoring from close range. Ten minutes later, Thomas was dispossessed, not for the first time, and it took great covering work by Faes to prevent a goal. A few minutes later, Iversen made another decent save when Gallagher flicked a header to Dolan at the edge of the box.
Finally, in the 33rd minute, the series of errors was capped by the most egregious one. Amartey simply passed the ball to Dolan on the edge of the City penalty area. He coolly strode forward and this time gave Iversen no chance with a shot to take the lead.
The unforced errors continued, but City held on to be one-nil down at half-time.
Neither manager made changes for the second half. The match continued much as before. Soumaré under-hit a pass that led to another shot well saved by Iversen. In the 52nd minute, Thomas dallied just a little wide on the left near the half-way line. The fact that the giant number 9, Gallagher, chased back to dispossess him said everything about the commitment of the Blackburn players. The ball ended up with Szmodics in the city penalty area and to the naked eye from the stands, he appeared to simply walk through three or four City players unchallenged to score from close range. Quite what the defence was doing, I do not know.
Iversen had another save to make a couple of minutes later and Rodgers decided that now was the time to make changes. Thomas and Praet were replaced by Iheanacho and Kristensen. Praet had a fairly good game, as he generally does, his replacement reflecting a change of formation rather than poor performance.
Iheanacho made an immediate impact, with an early shot just wide.
The next five minutes saw a credible Blackburn shot every minute. I wrote in my notebook “probably the most disjointed City performance I have seen this year”. But football is a funny old game, and from the 67th minute the dynamic of the game completely changed.
The spark was a superb cross-field pass by Tetê – who had hitherto done pretty much nothing of any note. The pass reached Barnes on the left, he raced to the by-line and crossed for a perfect near-post finish by Iheanacho – scoring in the FA Cup as usual. At 1-2 City were back in the game and the players and the crowd reflected that. Despite that, another under-hit Soumaré pass led to Gallagher being unmarked behind the City defence and putting the ball into the net, but the Assistant Referee flagged for offside, a decision supported by VAR.
Rodgers took off Tetê, Soumaré and Pereira, replacing them with Daka, Mendy and Castagne – so City were playing with three strikers: albeit Iheanacho was playing in a more roving role. The final 15 minutes of the match was dominated by the home team. Daka was lively, Vardy had a chance which he fired over and Iheanacho was everywhere, generally holding the ball up well. The Blackburn manager made changes to hold on to the lead, and it was to the visiting team’s credit that their time-wasting (or is it “game management”?) antics were considerably less objectionable than we had seen from Arsenal three days before. The referee also gave a sensible amount of added time – six minutes – too.
In the final flurry we saw an Iheanacho 25-yarder go just wide, an Iheanacho 20-yarder saved by the keeper, another Mendy thunderbolt go not far wide, an Amartey header from a corner hitting the post and various other near misses. City were arguably unlucky not to get an equaliser, but they did not, and the game ended with Blackburn victorious – apparently City’s first loss at home to lower league opposition since the infamous match against Wycombe.
Let’s look first at the positives. Pereira had 70-minutes, aiding his recovery. He did fine. Clearly, he was not at his best after such a long injury, but being on the same flank as the star man Dolan, he acquitted himself well. Once the substitutions had been made, the team played well. The increased positive intent which Christiansen consistently shows made a big difference, but all of the subs played their part. Iversen, too, had a good game – generally positive against corners and making important saves.
The bad points, though, are arguably more worrisome. With the exception of Iversen (and Pereira), the players brought into the team did not have good games. Amartey has done an honest and effective job in recent years filling gaps in the defence when needed, but today was one of his off-days. Thomas seems to have lost confidence, particularly going forwards. Soumaré still looks as though he needs too much time on the ball than he will be allowed. And Vardy … Vardy is and always will be a legend and a hero for City fans, but the truth is that this season, when Vardy has been the sole striker City have looked like a team who do not know how to score goals. This is probably not entirely the striker’s fault. Tetê is early in his City career. He looked unstoppable at Villa, but since then has not produced much. The brilliance of his goal-creating pass here gives hope that he may turn into the winger City have sought for a long time, but the jury is still out.
When City have their starting players fit and on the pitch, particularly Maddison, they look a team who can beat anyone. When Iheanacho is on the pitch, they look a team that can score against anyone. But the back-up players have, this season, consistently under-performed.
I am not, and never have been, in the “change the manager” camp. The players clearly do care, the last 15 minutes of this match is further proof of that. Even the best team cannot, however, consistently recover from sloppy errors which give the opposition one and two-goal leads. The stats for this match showed 22 shots by City – a big number – but the reality is that prior to the flurry in the last 10 minutes, the best chances, by far, had all fallen to Blackburn.
City can now focus on the League, and there is a lot of work to do there – beginning with a pivotal match on the south coast against Southampton.
Leicester City
Iversen, Ricardo Pereira, Amartey, Faes, Thomas, Praet, Soumaré, Dewsbury-Hall, Tetê, Vardy, Barnes
Substitutes
Smithies, Iheanacho, Souttar, Kristiansen, Daka, Mendy, Ndidi, Castagne, Marçal-Madivadua
Blackburn Rovers
Pears, Rankin-Costello, Carter, Hyam, Pickering, Travis, Morton, Hedges, Szmodics, Dolan, Gallagher
Substitutes
Brittain, Edun, Buckley, Vale, Garrett, Phillips, Hilton, Harlock, Leonard
The views expressed in this report are the opinions of the Trust member nominated to file the report only and do not represent the views of the Foxes Trust organisation