Not many sides have got the better of Enzo Maresca’s Leicester City. We are two-thirds into the season and only five teams have beaten them — and one of those was Liverpool.
The latest to fall short were Premier League side Bournemouth, who were beaten 1-0 last night courtesy of Abdul Fatawu’s long-range curler in extra time as Leicester reached the FA Cup quarter-finals for the fourth time in seven seasons.
In the Championship, Leicester remain six points clear at the top of the table, a spot they have held since the end of last September. Yet somehow, despite winning 25 of their 34 league games, they remain in a four-way fight for the two automatic promotion spots.
Leeds United, Ipswich Town and Southampton remain their biggest rivals and if it wasn’t for two of them, Leicester’s lead would be even more emphatic.
Out of the four games against Leeds and Ipswich, Leicester have come away with just two points from a possible 12. Sure, that total should arguably have been higher based on the way the four games played out, but the fact is, it isn’t.
Leicester can have few complaints about their home defeat to Leeds in November — they had just one shot on target from 10 efforts, compared to Leeds’ six from 11 — but in the other three games, they lacked a killer instinct at key moments and failed to kick on after scoring the opener.
Home and away against Ipswich, they failed to hold onto a one-goal lead and conceded equalisers in the 89th and 93rd minutes. Last Friday night at Leeds, they were wasteful in front of goal but were still 1-0 up in the 80th minute before conceding three times.
Leeds and Ipswich play fast, attacking football, with 11 of Leeds’ 38 open-play league goals coming from counter-attacks. As the team style table below demonstrates, Leeds and Ipswich perform above the league average for ‘passes per sequence’ (the mean number of consecutive passes they string together) and ‘direct speed’ (how fast they move the ball upfield in metres per second).
Around them in the graph are two of the other teams who have beaten Leicester this season: Middlesbrough and Coventry City.
Middlesbrough have also done the double over Leicester thanks to a late Sam Greenwood free kick at the Riverside Stadium and, more recently, a 2-1 win at King Power Stadium, another game in which Leicester dominated possession and had 24 efforts on goal — but only two on target.
There was mitigation in the defeat at Coventry as Leicester had defended with 10 men for the entire second half after Fatawu’s red card, but after Coventry equalised, the second and third goals came quickly afterwards, just as they did at Elland Road.
Leicester have enjoyed some success against their closest rivals, however. Southampton are the only Championship side close to Leicester in terms of style of play. Their possession stats this season are even higher than Leicester’s, they make even more passes per sequence and they attempt more passes per game (641 to Leicester’s 594).
When the two sides went head-to-head at St Mary’s Stadium in September, the hosts had 55 per cent possession but Leicester were clinical to punish their errors and win 4-1.
In two weeks, Southampton come to King Power Stadium for the return fixture and it could be a key clash. Leicester’s next few games will determine how much breathing space they will still have in that final run-in: before hosting Southampton, they also have to travel to Hull City — the only other team to have inflicted defeat upon them this season — and Sunderland, who Maresca said were the most aggressive side they had faced when Leicester narrowly beat them 1-0 in October.
The final eight games after that are against sides they have already beaten once this season, but Maresca and Leicester cannot afford to take anything for granted, especially if they continue to squander chances of the quality they have been creating in recent games.
Their overall performance this season suggests they will regain a more clinical edge. Eleven of their 70 goals scored have come from the penalty spot, where they have a 100 per cent conversion rate, but their tally of 59 goals is higher than their expected goals (xG) total of 55, suggesting they are finishing their chances at a better-than-expected rate, as can be seen in the table below.
In the last two games, however, Leicester recorded a higher xG than Middlesbrough and Leeds, at 2.1 and 1.5 against 1.0 and 1.4. They scored just once in both games, despite a combined total of 40 efforts on goal across the two fixtures.
Leicester have come unstuck in a few games and their record against their top-four rivals is mixed but overall, they are exceeding expectations in front of goal this season.
In their last two league outings, they misfired, but they showed they are still creating chances, and that can provide the confidence they need to go the distance.
(Top photo: Warren Little/Getty Images)
