Leicester 0-2 Arsenal: Three Foxes Talking Points | OneFootball

A predictable outcome

The outcome, a 2-0 victory for the Gunners, was no real surprise. However, the game was tighter than the scoreline suggests. Both sides had two good chances. Arsenal converted theirs whereas the Foxes didn’t.

Wilfred Ndidi should have done better with a header in the first half which he failed to direct on target. In the second, with the scores still level, a good low cross from Jordan Ayew was agonisingly close to being tapped in by Bobby DeCordova Reid with an Arsenal defender putting in a despairing lung to deflect the ball for a corner. At the other end, in the 81st and 87th minute, substitute Mikel Merino was twice allowed to escape Leicester defender’s attention to score. Game over.

An improved performance

Most Foxes’ fans would concede that their team was competitive today. It was a massive improvement on the appalling performance last weekend at Goodison Park. The defence, except for the last ten minutes, looked solid with Caleb Okoli and Woyo Coulibaly, the latter on for the injured James Justin at the half-time mark, impressing. Ndidi, too, undoubtedly improves this Leicester team and is one of the few Premier League quality players in the Foxes’ squad.

It should be borne I mind, however, that the Foxes were facing a seriously depleted Arsenal team shorn of four forward players. And yet the Gunners still had enough to beat the home side. More worrying, still, there is a distinct lack of penetration up front. Leicester have now failed to score in their five home games and I’m reliably informed that is a Premier League record. In the last ten games, the Foxes have won one and lost nine conceding 25 goals and scoring only four. Grim reading indeed.

The protest

A relatively small number of protesting Foxes’ fans marched from the Local Hero public house car park on Freeman’s Common to the King Power Stadium on Saturday lunchtime intent on making their feelings known about what they see as the failures of the club’s hierarchy. Ruud van Nistelrooy pleaded beforehand for all Leicester fans to get behind the team. In the event, the protest never really took off. This was mainly to do, I suspect, because the game was close and Leicester put in an encouraging performance.

The case put by the protestors is a compelling one, well summed up in a piece by the so-called Project Reset. Yes, there have been mistakes, as I have previously pointed out, and whilst it was unrealistic to expect the club to be regularly competing at the top end of the Premier League, relegation to the Championship should never have been allowed to happen.

What the protestors underestimate, I would argue, is the financial constraints Leicester City have been operating under, and this is not the fault of the club’s hierarchy. By refusing to explain their actions to the fans, though, the board are creating a void which is being filled by discontented supporters. That has to change otherwise the protests will get more vociferous.