Leicester City 2 v 1 Cardiff City
Post Match Analysis by Stuart Dawkins
For a couple of thousand or more Leicester fans, playing Cardiff City must trigger memories of the first game after Khun Vichai’s death in the helicopter crash. A scrappy 1-0 away win at Cardiff triggered scenes of shared joy and respect at the end between players and fans which I have never witnessed or experienced at a match at any other time.
Today’s game, played in less dramatic circumstance, but nonetheless at a pivotal time for City’s footballing development, provided a chance to assess what is new and different about what the ecstatic-again City fans are already calling football the Enzo way.
The immediate change is the line-up and style of play. A simplistic view would be “it’s a variant of 4-3-3 – like Rodgers played”. In truth it is considerably different – certainly very different to the way the team played for most of last season. The wingers play as wingers – right from kick-off Mavididi and Marçal-Madivadua line up to get the proverbial chalk on their boots. Secondly, the wingers are wingers. Indeed, there is still obviously a lot of settling in to do with a new manager and coaching team. So far, however, it really does look as though each player understands the system, their role in it and is capable of playing that role.
The team play the ball out from the back to an even greater extent than last season. And, by and large, the City crowd are beginning to get used to that. Of course, if the season had not started with such a positive run of results, there might be more pressure from the stands to lump the ball up the pitch, but the way City pass it out from defence this season so far has led to no absolute howlers. This is helped by having a keeper, a fit again Hermansen, who clearly is very happy to kick a ball, but also by the back four – including Vestergaard – being well drilled in where to be to safely receive the ball.
Ricardo Pereira has the now-fashionable role of joining central midfield when City have the ball and reverting to right-back when they do not. Again, this has worked well so far, and it is the sort of role change that could easily take a number of matches to bed in.
Winks looks a great buy for the role he plays, linking things together. And Iheanacho – preferred again over Vardy to start the game – suits the system as well.
For 45-minutes City were all over Cardiff. Iheanacho hit the post early on, and the Cardiff keeper Alnwick made a few decent saves. City’s goal – when it came – was well deserved. A near-post corner – one of many taken in the match – found its way to Marçal-Madivadua who blasted it though a crowd of players in an unstoppable manner.
A couple of things have, however, stayed similar to last season. Firstly, City’s periods of slick attacking play have not resulted in as many goals as they might. The second, prior to today at least, was rather too many sloppy passes in midfield under no real pressure than are desirable. It was ironic, therefore, that whilst today there were very few of these, the one by Dewsbury-Hall part-way through the single minute of first half stoppage time had such an impact. It was the kind of mistake – in choice of pass, in execution and in the timing of that choice – that cost City relegation last season. In this case, it enabled Cardiff to get the ball to Ramsey. City were slow to close him down – something, again, we saw too often last season but far less so this one. In mitigation, he was a full 30-yards from goal, but Ramsey is capable of hitting un-saveable shots from 30-yards and that is duly what he did, for an undeserved equaliser. It was naïve play so close to the whistle by City, but thankfully they would iron that out in the second half.
The equaliser put a bit more spring into Cardiff’s steps as the second half started. In the first, Leicester had looked faster and fitter throughout, but for the first 10-minutes of the second, Cardiff were probably the better team.
City got their act together, though, and created a couple more chances through fluid moves which were well dealt with by the Cardiff keeper.
As the half processed, Cardiff had brought on five substitutes. City brought on Caicedo for his debut, replacing Ndidi in the advanced midfield role, and Vardy for Iheanacho. One of Cardiff’s subs was Méïtéat, a classic ‘big number nine’ striker. A combination of him using his physical presence to harry City’s centre backs, and the fresher legs caused by half the outfield players being subs, meant that the game was now fairly evenly balanced, indeed Méïtéat missed arguably the best chance of the match shooting wide with only the keeper to beat.
The referee signalled six minutes added time, and it was clear that Cardiff were quite happy with a draw. Their time wasting stretched the referee’s limits as to what was allowable and when, in the 93rd minute City brought the ball forwards, they lined up along the 18-yard line, sending just one player out at a time to try to harass whichever City player had the ball. It was a risky tactic and Dewsbury-Hall more than atoned for his first half lapse by breaking a tackle and getting the ball into the box. Vardy’s trickery held it up and it looked as though he had been fouled for a penalty, but before the referee had even to make his mind up, the new-boy – the surprisingly tall Casadei – poked the ball home for a debut-game goal that brought the house down.
Cardiff had three minutes or so to change things, and the way they did so was largely to make increasingly desperate and illegal challenges – mostly on Dewsbury-Hall. Right-back Romeo (who had had a decent game) basically kicked him twice in about 5-minutes, each earning him a yellow card and leaving Cardiff to play the last couple of minutes with 10-men.
What was also encouraging to see, and such a difference to last season, was the way City played out those final minutes. There was a clear signal from the bench to Winks, and Winks clearly signalled to the team to “take the ball to the corner flags”. It was not quite the old glory days of Ulloa and Vardy doing that, but it was pretty close, and it left City comfortably holding their deserved lead to the final whistle. That, then, will – I hope – be another improvement from last season – watching the final few minutes of a match in the hope and expectation that City might be the team to score rather than, as happened so often last year, it being the opposition.
Three wins from three (four from four including the Cup match) clearly cannot be bettered. If City can up their scoring rate when they are dominating teams, and continue to cut out the mistakes, then football the Enzo way looks like it may have a possibility of doing the business for City.
Leicester City
Hermansen, Ricardo Pereira, Faes, Vestergaard, Doyle, Ndidi, Winks, Dewsbury-Hall, Marçal-Madivadua, Iheanacho, Mavididi
Substitutes
Ward, Justin, Casadei, Vardy, Albrighton, Choudhury, Thomas, Stolarczyk, Nelson
Cardiff City
Alnwick, Romeo, McGuinness, Goutas, Collins, Ralls, Wintle, Bowler, Ramsey, O’Dowda, Ugbo
Substitutes
Etete, Rúnarsson, Grant, Adams, Méïté, Siopis, Simpson, Tanner, Robinson
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.