Watford 0 Leicester City 1 (05/03/2016) 06/03/2016

Posted by Ian Grant in Match reports

1. By nature, I’m someone who cries rather easily. Although I’m not ashamed of that, it does mean I need to steel myself against disproportionately strong displays of emotion in some situations. It’s not the done thing to disintegrate into a howling wreck at the funeral of someone you barely knew, for example, nor do your fellow cinema-goers really need to hear you sobbing your little heart out at the end of “Toy Story 3”.

Similarly, nobody wants to be the fan who’s loudly blowing their nose on their scarf during the end-of-season lap of honour, especially if the “honour” involved is of the mid-table-in-the-Championship-could-do-better variety. As far as I can recall, I’ve only openly wept at one football match – that Allan Smart goal, so I was hardly alone – but I’ve been just a kindly word away from full-on waterworks countless times, most commonly at moments of triumph rather than disaster, and often when the triumph involved is so paltry that it’d barely merit a firm handshake or a hefty pat on the back. Swallow hard, look for something in your bag, stare at the pigeons in the Rookery roof, hold it all in. Sniff.

First thing in the morning, all bleary-eyed and semi-conscious with Fred sitting on my lap drinking his wake-up milk, I’ve found that I’m increasingly incapable of showing sensible emotional restraint when faced with whatever breakfast telly might throw at me. I’ve misted over at all manner of things: the maiden journey of the Flying Scotsman, little Harry’s antics, a Davis Cup victory I didn’t care enough about to actually watch at the time, the episode of “Hey Duggee” where the Squirrels got their Teddy Bear badges, and so on, and so forth.

Oh, and the bit where Jamie Vardy scored that goal against Liverpool.

2. Perhaps the defining moment of the season, that. So far, at least. At that second, slumped on the sofa watching the previous night’s “Match of the Day” without having seen the scores, I suddenly realised quite how badly I wanted Leicester to win the league. A goal by Jamie Vardy, who’s essentially the product of a laboratory experiment involving Andy Johnson and a sewer rat, brought me to the verge of tears. Bloody get in.

So vivid is our recent history with Leicester, it’s difficult not to see them as somehow ours, an old flame that’s still smouldering. An ex from a somewhat tetchy affair who’s suddenly shown up as a Best Actress nominee at the Oscars, still wearing an outfit bought in the Top Shop sale. They’re just like us. You can take the team out of the Championship, and all that. If you’ve got any imagination at all, you know how they must feel at this moment, how many sleepless nights there must be. Promotion in ’99 seemed to occupy every waking thought, every last nerve-end, seemed to sharpen every sense. That, and then some.

3. Thing is, we’re meant to be satisfied with meagre crumbs from the top table: the possibility of doing something in the cups, perhaps even qualifying for the Europa League if we push hard enough. If we dream, it’s supposed to be of somehow finishing in the top four, of qualifying for the competition they invented for themselves. That’ll never happen, of course, but it’s something to waft at us like a wad of notes out of a limousine window when we need some encouragement. And that’s it. Know your place.

Know your enemy. We aren’t exactly the grubby, dispossessed under-classes ourselves, quite clearly. But as the money-spinning elite continues to explore ways to close off entry to its little club, nothing could say a louder “f*** you” than Leicester winning the title. Not qualifying for the Champions League; that’s their world, in which money matters far more than trophies, in which a couple of those wafted notes might be caught by the wind and carried into the street to be fought over. No. Big fat bollocks to that.

Win the title. Make proper old-fashioned history, on your own terms. They can never, ever take that away.

4. So at the risk of being condemned as a cry-baby turncoat, there have been games of football I’ve wanted us to win more than this one. If we’re being flippant, we could say the same for the team, for Leicester’s newly-minted set of household names were that little bit hungrier for every ball from first to last. It’s easy to say that the other lot wanted it more, but Leicester play like they’ve considerably more at stake. “Hungrier” as in more aggressive, then…but also “hungrier” as in keener, sharper, more alert. The difference is marginal, but marginal is enough.

Spurs were supposed to be three points ahead by this point, with a better goal difference; Leicester start like condemned men given a reprieve and let loose in the pub at happy hour. We have some excuse: Britos is injured in the warm-up and Ake* takes his place in the centre, something we can’t have done that much preparation for. Our first proper injury crisis of the campaign, I guess, but there’s something throughly willing about Ake* and, to his great credit, he’s very much a fish in water here. Nevertheless, we’re thoroughly exposed early on, Vardy careering away from a lumbering Prodl* with extraordinary ease on a couple of occasions before Ake*’s last-ditch tackle saves us as Gomes’ save leaves a potential tap-in. For a bit, and not for the last time, they’re absolutely all over us.

5. And then, also not for the last time, they retreat into their shell. But let’s be clear about this: there are parts of the contest which are more even than others, but there are none – simply none – which aren’t played almost entirely on Leicester’s terms. It’s their game throughout. They’re not the kind of side to make a grand show of their dominance: possession is conceded willingly, and we spend large periods of time staring at the ball and wondering what we should do with it as if someone’s handed us a lost puppy and some feeding instructions before scarpering round the corner. Unlike the puppy, however, we find it easy enough to give the ball back.

Our opponents are obstinate, organised and extremely adept at picking us off. We haven’t built an especially creative side for this campaign, by choice. It’s an approach which has served us well and which we have no reason to regret, but it can look bloody horrible in these circumstances, as we forlornly search for inspiration against a team confident in its ability to pick us off on the break. It’s not even as if we’re that bad, and it’s certainly not that losing to the league leaders is cause for a finger-pointing inquest. We merely fall short, with a grim inevitability matched by the creeping cold of the early evening.

6. For quite a bit of the game, it’s like watching someone bang two stones together until one of them cracks. There’s a period at the start of the second half when both teams invent a version of Battleships, powering long balls upfield in the hope of hitting something. “Vardy, behind Prodl.” “Miss. Deeney, against Morgan.” “Miss.” None of it suits us, all of it suits Leicester. We fail to take our very few chances – Ake drifting a header onto the roof of the net, Deeney unlucky to find a placed shot deflected straight to Schmeichel – in the way that you always fail to take your chances in these kind of defeats. Leicester waste some too – Vardy prods the best one wide of the near post after picking Prodl’s pocket – but carry a confidence in their ability to create more and finish one that we can only envy.

They’re happy to retreat for long periods, but tellingly, they’re also happy to push on when the time seems right, and the only goal is the culmination of a concerned spell of prodding and probing before Fuchs’ searching cross is only half-cleared by Holebas and Mahrez curls home an unstoppable finish. They briefly threaten to smash our faces into the canvas: Huth heads wide, Gomes claws another header away, Ake clears a ball squared by Vardy across the six yard box with King awaiting an open goal. Their midfield is everywhere, Drinkwater ubiquitous. And then they settle back again and leave us to it.

7. If the game had previously been frustrating, it becomes fairly unbearable from here. We have no answer. None at all. Nordin Amrabat provides some much-needed energy and attacking intent, which, even if it doesn’t amount to an awful lot, is enough to make his the stand-out attacking contribution in a field of one. We need some goals from elsewhere, badly.

Our set pieces are terrible, almost without exception. Ighalo finishes an unhappy week by heading the only chance of note straight at Schmeichel from six yards; he barely touches the ball otherwise. Abdi and Anya replace more defensive-minded starters, to little effect. We’re reduced to lumping the ball into a crowded box by the end, our lack of conviction betrayed by a strangely lethargic pace; it feels as if any urgency is more likely to bring about a second Leicester goal on the break than an equaliser. We know how it ends. Leicester stifle our screams with a pillow.

8. Far from a disaster, but you can sense the growing impatience with this style of football. We’re hard to beat and we’re really very resilient; neither of those things seems to mean very much if you end up losing anyway, with ‘nil’ to your name yet again. You can see the temptation to aim for something more expansive and luxurious next season. You can see the dangers in that too, the perils of raised expectations for the difficult second season. You don’t have to look hard for examples of that going spectacularly pear-shaped.

And you don’t have to look hard for an example of how far an essentially conservative approach can take you, if everything slots into place. Leicester’s own difficult second season seems to be going quite well, all things considered. Same basic template – hard to beat, extremely resilient – except with a well-oiled counter-attacking operation welded on top; they look like quite a side here, powerful and lean and intelligent. We’d do well not to throw the baby out with the bathwater.

Conventional wisdom has it that Leicester, built for defending and breaking as they are, are likely to struggle in a run of fixtures that’ll see them up against teams unwilling to come out to play. Me, I’m not so sure. They might not find it easy, but there’s something unbelievably determined about this side. Something that was forged in the fires of a relegation battle, of six-pointers with entire careers at stake. Something tough and streetwise. Something of the grubby, dispossessed under-classes.

9. Come on, Leicester. Come on, Leicester.

10. (We’ll just settle for winning the FA Cup, shall we?)

* Look, it’s half seven on Sunday night and I’d like to have my tea. I’m not doing the accents. Fill them in yourselves.