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.

Match Preview: Reading

Two sides that have made less than impressive starts chase their first win on Sky TV. Leicester welcome the cameras to the Walkers Stadium for the first time this season. Already the Foxes are scheduled to appear four times on TV before the end of November. That’s well on the way to matching last season’s 10 appearances on the box, in which the Foxes won four, drew three and lost three.

The conventional wisdom is that TV games lead to lower attendances. That wasn’t the case in 2009/10. Last season’s average attendance across all 22 home league matches (including the playoffs) was 23,943, the City matches on TV had average gates of 25,216. That said, City’s sluggish start could lead to a diminished turnout.

Reading have taken seven points from their last three visits to the Walkers Stadium. Of the current Championship crop only Burnley and Preston (three consecutive league wins at the Walkers) can better the Royals recent record.

But the history between the two sides is short. The only side in the Championship the City have faced fewer times than Reading (15 matches in all competitions) is Scunthorpe (8 matches).

Despite this, the Foxes will want to get even after last season’s result. Reading snatched all three points at the Walkers thanks to a late penalty. The Berkshire side were the side awarded 11 spot kicks last season, more than any other Championship team.

Before the season SkyBet offered 11/2 that this match would bring Paulo Sousa’s first league win. I wonder how much the manager would give for his first victory now?

Match Preview: Leeds Utd

I was there.

I was there when Harry Kewell made it Leicester 0-6 Leeds the last time these two sides met in the League Cup.

If there was ever a match to leave early it was that one, but I stayed until the end to witness City’s biggest cup defeat at home. I'm like that.

Annoyingly I wasn’t there for the happier recent cup meetings with Leeds. Two goals in the last two minutes snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in Round 4 of the 98/99 season. I also missed the 4-2 win on penalties at the same stage of the competition in 1999. When things like that happen it makes every fan question whether they are an omen. For those of you interested in tracking such things the excellent Doing The 92 website helps in showing just how (un)fortunate you are.

For what it’s worth Leicester feature in another part of the Leeds United record book. City suffered an 8-0 defeat at Elland Road in April 1934. It remains Leeds United’s biggest ever home league win.

But Elland Road hasn’t been so intimidating in recent years. The Foxes have won on five of their last 10 visits and have scored at least once in each of those games. A goal for Leeds however, will be the clubs 200th against the Foxes in all competitions.

Is this the end for Matty Fryatt?

The absence of Matty Fryatt from today’s squad has surprised quite a few City fans. As City failed to find the back of the net in their first home game it came as no surprise that some chose to criticise Paulo Sousa's decision to leave Leicester's top scorer of the last decade on the bench.

After Fryatt's jaw found itself subject to the business end of Brian Stock’s shoulder the former Walsall man missed almost all of City's charge to the playoffs. In that time the Foxes have chosen to move away from the 4-4-2 which suited Fryatt and instead played a 4-3-3/4-5-1. Under Sousa this has been refined further to a 4-2-3-1, with Oakley and Wellens anchoring the midfield and Steve Howard operating as a lone front man.

With the return of DJ Campbell to the ranks and the signing of Frank Moussa, Leicester have the players to make this system work. Dyer and Campbell, Moussa and N’Guessean are able to cover sufficient ground to tend to defensive duties when City don't have the ball, but quickly become active forward players when the Foxes are in possession. With Steve Howard leading the line as the preferred striker and Leon Crncic his preferred replacement, this leaves Fryatt without a role. He lacks the mobility to shift the wide players or the aerial ability to replace Howard.

Fryatt operates best on the shoulder of the last defender. He has the uncanny knack of finding space in the penalty area. But for all his goals, Fryatt’s game is lacking in precisely the areas he needs to excel under Sousa. He makes, as Sousa might say, poor decisions. He dribbles when he should spread the play, makes runs down blind alleys and takes forever to look up and assess the options with the ball at his feet.

The opening 45 minutes at Crystal Palace really, ahem, crystallised these points. Fryatt’s control let him down, slowing the play to a standstill. Having allowed defenders to get behind the ball he was left with a series of unappetising options. More often than not, he gave the ball away.

If City are to stick with 4-2-3-1 Fryatt might not be long for the Walkers Stadium.

Match Preview: Burnley

One of the great things about football is its capacity for surprise. It’s also one of the perils of running a blog based largely on historical statistics: past form does not equal future performance. In the case of Burnley vs. Leicester, one can only hope that this is true. Those looking for reasons as to why this will be the must see fixture of the weekend, look away now.

The last eight matches between Burnley and Leicester have produced seven goals. There have been two goalless draws followed by five consecutive 1-0 scorelines. The last meeting between the two sides finished a comparative goalfest, a 1-1 draw. Ian Hume scored City’s equaliser in that match; he is the only Leicester player to have scored against Burnley in the last eight matches between the sides.

Incidentally, that draw was the first time both teams had scored in the same match since 2003. The last time both teams scored more than one goal in the same game was in December 1982. If you’re looking to place a bet, I strongly advise you to look at the over/under markets.

With goals at a premium we might not witness this on Saturday, but the next goal from either Burnley or Leicester will be the 300th in matches between the two sides.

As it stands fans are likely to see more cards than goals. The match official, Mr G Eltringham, has dished out eight yellow and two red cards in his first three games this season. This will be only his second match officiating at Championship level.

But here’s one fact to cling to, there hasn’t been a goalless draw at Turf Moor since 22nd November 2008. Mind you, if it is a stalemate at least the Foxes will avoid equalling their worst start to the season since 2001/02 and their worst start in the second tier since 1949/50.