“A setback like tonight, how we recover from that will end up defining how we do this year.”
Leicester City manager Steve Cooper was making no excuses for his side’s self-destructive display against his former club, East Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest.
It was a chastening night for Cooper and Leicester, another display of two very different halves where they had to come from behind for the seventh time in nine games, took the one genuine chance they created but committed a litany of mistakes. They handed Forest the points on a platter.
There are fundamentals any team should adopt and perfect. Not giving the ball away cheaply around your own box is one and Leicester were regularly guilty of that, especially for the first goal they conceded. Not clearing your lines is another, as is getting tight to your man inside the penalty area and not letting him turn. Caleb Okoli failed to do so with Chris Wood for the second while Okoli and Wout Faes were unable to deal with a long, hopeful punt up field as they gifted the third to Wood.
But there were other moments of exasperation, of unforced errors, moments of poor communication, errors in judgement and sloppy play that littered their second-half display. This season, such passages have not been isolated incidents. They have plagued matches and threaten to derail Leicester’s season.
Cooper’s side have scored in every game and are taking a high proportion of the few chances they create, but they are also giving up far too many opportunities at the other end.
Again goalkeeper Mads Hermansen was called into action on far too many occasions. He is enhancing his reputation and demonstrating what a good goalkeeper he is, but Cooper would rather his goalkeeper wasn’t centre stage every game.
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Forest had 20 shots against Leicester; since their promotion in 2022, only against Southampton in August this season (23) have they had more in a single Premier League match. Leicester faced 35 efforts on goal, 16 of which were on target, in the 4-2 defeat at Arsenal too.
In total, Leicester have faced 168 shots in nine games, a higher number than any other side with the rest of the weekend games to come.
They have conceded 16 goals and have an xG against of 21.72, so they would have been expected to have conceded five more goals based on the quality of the chances they have given up. Hermansen is chiefly responsible for that differential.
So how does Cooper shore up his porous defence?
He could change his system. He has played predominantly a 4-2-3-1 with one high full-back, creating a back three. He changed it to something more akin to last season under Enzo Maresca with Ricardo Pereira making his first league start of the season as a full-back stepping inside into midfield, leaving the back three. They dominated possession, especially in the first half until Nuno Espirito Santo countered their box of four at half-time.
But they were increasingly vulnerable and even ragged in the final stages.
After Cooper guided Forest to the Premier League for the first time in 23 years, they were also vulnerable until he switched to a back five and was more pragmatic. Does he need to do the same at Leicester?
He would still need the right personnel to make that switch and there are certainly questions over the form of some of his defensive options. Okoli had a difficult night but has still been the pick of the defenders this season.
James Justin, who can play in a back three, is struggling with form while Faes, whose display against Bournemouth was his most dominant yet, has had the rest of his performances marked by lapses in concentration.
Jannik Vestergaard is injured but has also been out of favour, while Conor Coady has also been overlooked because of Cooper’s desire to have more mobile defenders.
Cooper may want to bring in another central defender in the January transfer window but it will be a question of who is suitable and available, and how Leicester’s finances look like after they submit their accounts to the Premier League for last season, with their ongoing profit and sustainability concerns still prevalent.
They have shown resilience this season and only three teams have gained more points from losing positions in the Premier League this season than Leicester (five). Last week, they came from 2-0 down to win 3-2 at Southampton, having lost each of their previous 66 top-flight matches when trailing by two goals.
There is some fight in this Leicester side, but they cannot keep having to overcome seemingly insurmountable odds.
At the end of the match, the jubilant Forest fans rubbed the salt deep into the open Leicester wounds as they sang: “Straight back down Leicester City… playing the Cooper way,” mocking the terrace anthem that Leicester fans had sung about going straight back up playing Enzo Maresca’s way last season.
It may have been merely to wind up the crestfallen home support, some of whom booed loudly at the final whistle, but unless Cooper finds the answers to their defensive frailties that prediction could become a reality.
(Top photo: Michael Regan/Getty Images)
