When Alejandro Garnacho cut inside onto his right foot to curl Manchester United’s third and final goal past Leicester City goalkeeper Mads Hermansen from the edge of the box, there was a familiar inevitability about it.
It was a good finish, no doubt about it, but the way the goal came about, and where it was scored from, sum up not only Leicester’s display at Old Trafford in yesterday’s 3-0 defeat, but their persistent defensive failings in the early months of this season.
All three goals were preventable from a Leicester perspective and all three were scored down their fragile right-hand side. In fact, astonishingly, 54 per cent of United’s attacks during the game came down Leicester’s right.
This is something that has been happening too often this season just to be dismissed as an anomaly and it is something manager Steve Cooper must address if his side are to avoid a desperate scrap for survival come the end of it.
In the build-up to the match, the statistic that promoted Leicester were, along with four-in-a-row champions Manchester City, the only team to score in all of their Premier League games so far this season was put to Cooper — a sequence that finally ended on a hazy autumnal afternoon in Manchester, despite five of their six efforts being on target.
With 10 points on the board after as many games, Cooper replied with a stat of his own: that in the past seven seasons only six promoted sides had made a stronger start. However, he didn’t shy away from how poor his side have been defensively. After 11 matches, they have now conceded 21 times — only Brentford, Ipswich Town (both 22) and Wolverhampton Wanderers (27) have let in more.
Leicester have also kept just one clean sheet in the league, the 1-0 win against Bournemouth on October 5, and worryingly they are displaying a tendency for self-destruction.
Individual errors are costing them dear.
Just look at the three goals yesterday if you want proof.
There was a collective failure as they switched off from the throw-in for Bruno Fernandes’ opener on 17 minutes, and that throw only came about because of Victor Kristiansen’s inability to deal with a high punt upfield, choosing to let the ball bounce rather than deal with it first time. That invited pressure which could have been avoided.
Kristiansen may feel unfortunate the second is being attributed to him as an own goal, as his team-mates let United work the ball wide to Noussair Mazraoui and gave the Moroccan plenty of time to put in a cross that Leicester’s centre-backs failed to deal with. Fernandes was stooping to direct the ball goalwards when it cannoned off Kristiansen’s knee as he tried to cover.
Similarly for the third, it was an inability by some of Leicester’s players to spot the danger and then a lack of desire to track back that gave Fernandes acres of space in midfield and then when Garnacho was lining up his shot, Cooper’s players failed to close the space around him.
According to Opta, Leicester have conceded nine goals on passes from the right-hand side in open play this season, which is the most in the division. The next highest are Wolves with six.
The finger of blame could inevitably be pointed at those who play on that flank, such as their regular right-back James Justin. But as The Athletic has previously highlighted, at times Justin is left isolated and outnumbered — as he and Facundo Buonanotte were for the goal by Fernandes. Nobody in the box came out to press Amad, who was in acres of space.
Yesterday, it was Justin who was employed as the high full-back in Cooper’s formation, given the task of taking any advantage of the space vacated by Buonanotte as he drifted infield, but in previous games it has been Kristiansen in that role as Leicester switch to a back three, leaving Justin as the third centre-back in a stretched defensive line, which is often offered little protection in front of it.
Cooper has changed personnel, with Ricardo Pereira coming in to play his more familiar inside full-back role… until he picked up an injury in training last week that is expected to keep him out for several months. The manager has tinkered with his central defensive pairing too, with Caleb Okoli being replaced by Jannik Vestergaard in recent games, but it has brought little improvement.
It may be a structural issue that Cooper needs to address, but it could also simply be a question of those players he does select showing the attitude and desire to defend situations better.
“I’ll have to look at the ins and outs of the goals in more detail,” Cooper said. “You look at the game in isolation but we also have to look at the bigger picture (and) whether there is a correlation of personnel or other things. We will definitely have to look at that. But regardless of the right side, the left side, middle, we have not got up to the ball when they have been around our box and (have) allowed them to show the quality that they have.
“We have got to look at ourselves and see that we didn’t get enough pressure on the ball for the shots. We didn’t get enough pressure on the ball for the cross and the first contact for the second goal and for the third goal — albeit a little bit longer as the phase of play started from our corner.”
Leicester have done many things well so far on their return to the Premier League, especially improving exciting players such as Buonanotte and Abdul Fatawu, but their passive defending has left a soft underbelly exposed that threatens to derail their top-flight survival chances.
(Top photo: Robbie Jay Barratt – AMA/Getty Images)
