The blog is moving

This is just a short note to say that foxblogger is moving. It can now be found at foxblogger.wordpress.com.

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A new post, "Wasted Chances", is available at the new site. Thanks for reading.

Match Preview – Queens Park Rangers

It’s difficult to see how the QPR that visited the Walkers Stadium in April could be more different than the side which will take on the Foxes on Saturday. Just over five months ago Neil Warnock’s team arrived having failed to win any of their last dozen games on the road. The R’s had shipped 25 goals in that time, scoring only eight themselves, and had the lowest percentage of shots on target in the Championship (47.51%).

Now Leicester face an entirely different proposition. Rangers are the only undefeated side left in the Championship. They have scored the most goals (17), conceded the fewest (2), and have kept the most clean sheets (5). Worse still, unlike Tuesday’s visitors, QPR are untroubled by an extensive injury list to their top creative talents.

Perhaps there are some similarities that can be drawn from the City side that crushed QPR 4-0 in April. The Foxes went into that game on the back of four straight league defeats, and had averaged just 1.3 points per game since they had beaten QPR at Loftus Road in October ‘09. This time, the Foxes are recovering from what is still (in terms of points won) a poor start to the campaign.

The spine of that April team remains the same too. Seven of the 11 who put City’s promotion push back on track that day started on Tuesday night. Five of QPR’s starters that day made the first eleven at Ipswich. Carl Ikeme, who played his final game for QPR in April’s thrashing, is likely to start for the Foxes instead.

Recent history between the two sides has been quite even. Both teams have four wins in meetings since 2004, there have also been a further two draws. What is also evenly matched is the desire of both sides to attack. Each has 50 attempts on target, a feat bettered by no other Championship side.

Confidence is high and the bookies have City as slight favourites, but only just.

Match Preview - Cardiff City

It’s unsurprising that the main talking point from the weekend for Leicester fans has been City’s failure to take all three points at Coventry. A stream of chances were not converted, and the result leaves the Foxes still looking for their first win ahead of back to back meetings with the Championship’s top two.

City’s lowly league position is false in many ways, not least because the Foxes have created chances. Indeed, their total of 40 shots on target is the highest in the Championship. Leicester’s forwards have been accurate too, 57.97% of their attempts on goal have hit the target. This is the best accuracy rating in the division. But, as I recall writing at a similar stage last season, testing the keeper and beating him are two very different things. What City have failed to manage thus far is to convert anywhere near the amount of scoring opportunities required to put them in the promotion picture.

Of Leicester’s 69 attempts on goal just four have found the net, a chance conversion rate of 5.8%. This does not compare favourably with Cardiff City, who have netted 11 times from 55 attempts, a Championship topping conversion rate of 20%.

More worryingly for City, the Bluebirds have the meanest defence in the league. The Cardiff City backline has been breached just twice. And if City want to take points from Tuesday’s game they will have to start brightly, Cardiff’s second half record reads P5 W5 D0 L0 F7 A0.

Looking at the City ranks it’s clear than for most confidence is not an issue for some. Lloyd Dyer, Steve Howard and Dany N’Guessan are all attempting strikes on goal every 30 minutes or less. By contrast, Paul Gallagher has spent 96 minutes on the pitch in league games and hasn’t recorded a single shot. Matty Fryatt (one of five attempts on target) still seems rusty, but Andy King with two goals from four attempts is looking deadly.

But despite talk of goals, this fixture hasn’t produce that many over the years. The last four meetings between Leicester and Cardiff at the Walkers stadium have produced just two goals, and Cardiff have only scored four goals in their last six visits to the Walkers. Recent form, however, suggests those records aren’t going to be reliable indicators to the result.

Match Preview - Coventry City

To put it politely, we’re all less than pleased that City are still chasing their first league win in September. For a long time it has been difficult to pinpoint why Leicester’s start under Paulo Sousa has felt quite as unfulfilling as it has. Following a bit of research it is now clear exactly why – Leicester City are the only team in the Championship yet to take the lead in a league match. Not only have we yet to see a win, Foxes fans have yet to witness even so much as a theoretical three points on a live league table. No wonder it feels so gloomy.

On the whole, what looked like tough set of opening fixtures is for the moment looking rather different. Only one of the four sides City have faced so far currently sits in the top half. In contrast only one of the five sides City meet in September currently lies any lower than 8th, making the task of finding the first win look even more daunting.

The Foxes are only five short of 2500 league goals away from home, but just 3 league goals so far makes this look a rather distant landmark. At present none of City’s league strikes have come in the first half, a habit which has carried over from last season. In 2009/10 City failed to score in the opening 45 minutes of 26 league games, including their first five Championship matches.

City have never won at the Richo Arena, and their last five trips to Coventry have yielded four points. Not since Micky Adams has a Leicester manager travelled back up the M69 with a win. If you’re thinking of backing City to get their 5th draw in their last 6 trips to Coventry, bear in mind that its now 12 matches since City match away from home has finished all-square.

It is possible to scrape together some positives from the past. City faced the Sky Blues in the first game after Milan Mandarić had been officially unveiled as the new Foxes owner. City, under Rob Kelly, won 3-0. And Kelley’s predecessor Craig Levein got his first win as Leicester manager against Coventry, also a 3-0 victory.

I’m sure Paulo Sousa would settle for that.

Just a thought...

It has been well publicised that this is City’s worst start to a league campaign since 1994. Then as now, City faced a less than forgiving set of fixtures; Kevin Keegan’s Newcastle, the eventual Champions Blackburn Rovers, a Nottingham Forest side which would finish 3rd and a QPR side that ended the season in 8th.

Everyone hoped for a better start from Paulo Sousa’s side, but it’s interesting to compare his record with the man some dreamers hope might replace him.

Here are Martin O’Neil’s first seven league games in charge of Leicester.

Grimsby Town (a) – 2-2
Millwall (a) – 1-1
Stoke City (a) – 0-1
Sunderland (h) – 0-0
Luton Town (h) – 1-1
Portsmouth (a) – 1-2
Port Vale (h) – 1-1

Had these fixtures taken place at the start of the season City would have been joint bottom, spared 24th spot by virtue of scoring six goals.

Fans famously called for O’Neil’s head after fifteen league matches in which his side had accrued a total of three wins and two clean sheets. In the context of the four seasons that followed those protests look extremely foolish now.

This isn’t to say that Paulo Sousa is the next O’Neil, just that managers deserve time to impose their ideas on the side. Sousa’s attempt to create a more fluid City line-up is a worthy cause, even if ironically O’Neil spent his early days moving City away from Mark McGhee’s passing game towards a more direct approach.

In short, even the best take their time. Let’s worry about the table in October.

Two Weeks Off

Like many City fans my opening to the season has been interrupted by a well-earned holiday. Some might be able to switch off completely, but I gripped my smartphone tightly (although not too tightly) as free WiFi hotspots delivered precious snippets of Foxes news. It appears that I have missed an awful lot.

On the pitch City have slumped to their worst start for 16 years. If that doesn’t sound bad enough, tell your friends that this is Leicester’s worst start in the second tier since 1919/20.

I recorded the Reading game and watched an all too often lifeless performance, disguised by a late rally that made City look unfortunate losers. The Leicester City Football Forum immediately following the match made for an entertaining listen. I lost count of the number of fans calling for Sousa’s head. A notion which seems utterly ridiculous at this stage of the season.

The Foxes are through to 3rd Round of the League Cup and face the prospect of two trips to Fratton Park in four days. There has, as far as I can tell, not been much rejoicing.

Off the pitch things have been far more interesting. The club have managed another PR gaffe in their handling of the Fosse Boys. First it seemed the well-meaning supporters group were being denied entry to the stadium following complaints from fellow fans. Then the issue circled more around what was deemed to be “persistent standing”, an act banned it all sections of the ground but an acknowledged reality in the away end and the area immediately surrounding Lee Jobber.

Of course health and safety rules mean the club can’t be seen to condone standing, but nor can they look as if they are picking on a genuinely positive group of fans in the hope of choking off the Fosse Boys movement before it reaches a critical mass (and enforcing rules around “persistent standing” becomes impractical not to mention expensive). The two sides are now in dialogue. An improved atmosphere at the Walkers is in everyone’s interest and we can only hope the matter is handled in a more tactful manner than the ham-fisted approach we have witnessed so far.

There was some more positive news in the transfer market. City came close to fetching their £1.5m price tag for DJ Campbell, a very respectable achievement given they were dealing with a player eager to leave and who, thanks to his expensive and expiring contact, held all the aces. The return of Martyn Waghorn to the Walkers Stadium has raised spirits, and the addition of Yuki Abe looks a good one.

Despite the new signings, fairly basic questions still remain about the takeover. Questions like; How much did the consortium pay for the club? How big a shareholding does Milan Mandarić own in the new consortium? And who are the other members of the consortium? The existence of shadowy figures only leads to suspicion.

Meanwhile the fixtures come thick and fast - seven games in 22 days. City’s outlook on the season will be much better defined by the evening of the 2nd October. Sixteen years ago the Foxes started with one draw and five defeats before getting their first win of the season at home to Spurs. In 1919/20, City’s first win came in game five. All I know is that I much prefer statistics which involve Leicester City winning.