There were plenty of empty seats around the ground from the off (in both the home and away sections) but those who decided to swerve this one in favour of some pre Easter egg-chasing on the telly should regret it as they missed a game which served up a large heap of entertainment even if it often dwarfed the amount of quality on display.
Kane’s early goals and the space being given to Eriksen promised much and if Chadli had kept down his attempt to convert the rebound from Eriksen’s shot against the post then maybe a tonking would’ve ensued – that would’ve made it three nil – but he didn’t so instead Leicester’s whippets deservedly worked themselves back into the game and when Morgan equalised shortly after the break, Vardy had finished well to get the first, there appeared to be only one winner, and it wasn’t us. (The big centre half Morgan was being marked by Bentaleb at corners by the way.)
Two decisions swung the game back in our favour, firstly Pochettino made the very sensible move of beefing up a midfield that was being out everythinged by swapping Townsend for Paulinho and then Mike Dean spotted correctly that Danny Rose had got to Mason’s through ball before Nugent; Kane buried the spot kick. We looked a lot more balanced now with Bentaleb and Mason flanking Paulinho.
The Foxes heads dropped for a while and Kane and Chadli missed good chances to make it four before Schlupp inadvertently did so. That appeared to be that but Dier, Vertonghen and Walker managed to get themselves in a pickle under a hoof forward and Nugent brought the away side to within one. Thankfully for us that was the last of the meaningful action.
Lloris missed all but a couple of minutes of this game after being accidentally booted by Walker when he slid in to the keeper with a Leicester attacker. The annoying thing was that the linesman already had his flag up for offside and Dean could’ve called play back well before the keeper was injured. Poor refereeing.
This could all have been very different. We plodded through a lot of this game as Leicester looked livelier and more tenacious for long periods. They switched to three at the back for the second half and it caused us problems until we brought on Paulinho and tried to match them for numbers in midfield. So we were fortunate from that point of view, however they were gung-ho and left themselves open far too often for their own good. If Chadli was anywhere near as clinical (or had as much luck with deflections) as Kane then if wouldn’t have taken us as long as it did to get four.
Another three goals conceded, our defending was rank again far too often. Vertonghen, Dier and Walker were all mugged regularly, Rose too but he also won a number of vital fifty-fiftys. The system, shape and selection are as much to blame as individuals which given the manager’s pedigree as an Argentine and a centre-back is surprising.
A couple of weeks off now for a lot of the players, good news as many of them look like they could do with a rest.
COYS.
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