No club has trailed at the break more often than Leicester City this season and yet in all of the five games they’ve trudged down the tunnel halfway to a defeat, they’ve come back out fighting. It is overwhelmingly their best quality and one that could be vital in keeping them up.
This was City’s biggest turnaround yet, and one that will live long in the memory. While it’s the first time in the Premier League they’ve been two down at the interval and won, there’s been signs they’re capable all season.
Against Tottenham and Everton they recovered to claim a point and, in portions of those games, looked most likely to go on and get a winner. Against Aston Villa, they got one back and were pushing for another. At Arsenal, they came from nowhere to level before suffering late heartbreak.
Between the 46th and 75th minutes, they have the best record in the Premier League this season, with eight goals scored and three conceded. Now, for the first time this term, they’ve continued their comeback into the final quarter of an hour and beyond to get their latest winner in recent memory.
It takes a strong mentality and impressive levels of self-belief to keep fighting back. A lot of these first halves have been so poor that it would not be a surprise if their heads dropped and they’d stumbled their way through the second halves too. At Southampton, the first-half showing was so far below par that the boos from the away end at the half-time whistle were loud enough to be audible over the home crowd’s cheers.
But this team clearly has a resilience to shrug off what has come before. Whether he’s inspiring it, fostering it, or simply letting it breathe, Steve Cooper is ensuring those qualities come to the fore.
Good tactics and excellent individual performances are required for comebacks too, and City got both of those in the second half at St Mary’s as well. But undying self-belief and a never-say-die attitude are necessities. All of the evidence so far suggests this team possesses those qualities.
At the very least, it will ensure they are in the fight to the final whistle in every game they play. At best, they will pull out results like this and keep themselves in the Premier League.
Gung-ho approach among four Fatawu options for Forest
The moment Abdul Fatawu stood up from the bench, started stripping off and receiving tactical instructions, City fans started chanting his name. They had faith he could make a difference. They were proven right spectacularly.
If not for Fatawu’s display of speed, directness, and quality in the final third, City unlikely would have recovered from their two-goal deficit. He played a part in each of the three goals, either by tearing past his full-back or making himself a threat at the far post. Southampton did not know how to stop him and he exploited that.
It’s what makes him so dangerous. Yes, he does like to cut in on his left foot and curl shots goalwards because he has the ability to score from those positions. An inch lower and his 25-yard second-half beauty would have kissed the bar and found the net, instead of bouncing out, and he’d have bagged himself a goal of the month nomination.
But while defenders may look to avoid such a scenario by showing him onto his right foot, he has long shown he will gladly accept that route and beat his markers around the outside. The touch, sprint, and cross for Facundo Buonanotte’s goal were perfect.
After such a game-changing and barnstorming showing, much of the post-match discussion has been on the need for Fatawu to start against Nottingham Forest. It’s not a certainty that he will.
Because the 20-year-old was actually playing as a right-back. Cooper introduced him as the advanced full-back in his system, but with City dominating possession and playing against 10 men, it may have seemed to the naked eye he was operating as a winger. But in the few moments Southampton had the ball, Fatawu positioned himself on the right of a back four.
Cooper has said he can play that position going forward, especially because he is willing to defend. He can be rash in the tackle, but he does not shirk his duties off the ball.
However, it is difficult to see Fatawu starting a game in that position. It feels far too gung-ho. City were chasing the game against Southampton. They had to go for it. It was a roll of the dice that paid off hugely. But in most games, City will do more defending than attacking. Fatawu would be a full-back more often than he’s a winger.
How else might Fatawu fit into the 11? Well, Stephy Mavididi could sit out, as was the case in the first three matches of the season, but that’s not what supporters want. They would prefer both on the pitch.
Mavididi could perhaps play the inverted winger role, doubling as a number 10 when City are in possession, but that takes away some of his best qualities. Or, Cooper could change his system so that Fatawu and Mavididi can both play as out-and-out wingers. That last option would probably be preferred among supporters, but is perhaps the last option the manager would consider. There is no simple solution.
When he plays like that, it feels like Cooper should be doing everything he can to not only get him in the team, but to ensure the team is set up to get the best out of him. But it should not be forgotten that he underwhelmed when he started against Fulham and Aston Villa, making poor decisions and running into trouble. The manager may feel he’s best as an impact substitute.
Start Fatawu at right-back, drop Mavididi, change the system, or leave the Ghanaian on the bench. Those are Cooper’s choices. It will be very interesting to see which he picks against Nottingham Forest.
Right-hand flank problems exposed again
Fatawu at right-back from kick-off would cause some nerves simply because it is City’s point of vulnerability. It is so often the position from which City concede, as was the case for both of Southampton’s goals.
But it’s not that James Justin is specifically the weak link. City just don’t seem to be able to cover that area of the pitch properly.
For the first Southampton goal, Justin was outnumbered by two Southampton players. Buonanotte was out of the game, having committed the foul from which the Saints took their quick free-kick. But City did not seem to have a contingency plan for that scenario, and so they just let Kyle Walker-Peters advance with the ball until Justin had to close him, by which point he offloaded to Ryan Manning who delivered the cross for Cameron Archer.
The second goal was more of an individual error from Justin, who was fooled by Walker-Peters in a one-on-one. The rest of the defence, perhaps conscious that Archer’s goal had been from a cross between them and Mads Hermansen, dropped too deep into the six-yard box, giving Joe Aribo space on the cut-back.
Cooper was keen not to revel in the victory too much and instead acknowledge that there are areas to improve. He said: “I’m not going to ignore the first half and that’s probably the first thing I should have said. I don’t just mean going in 2-0 down.
“We should obviously do better with the goals and there are a couple of things we need to do better at. I’m so happy with the win but I’m not going to get too carried away with the whole game. I need to look at it properly and see how we can improve.”
Forest will do their homework. They will analyse the goals City have conceded to see where they can exploit them. It will be clear to them that it’s where they should be targeting. In that case, City need to work on how they fix that spot.
Important Winks contribution shows midfield standards rising
Fatawu was not the only City sub to have an effect on the game. Jordan Ayew scored the winner (although should have given away a penalty too) and Bobby De Cordova-Reid helped keep the attack flowing. But the introduction of Harry Winks was vital.
Cooper has been criticised this season for waiting until late in the second period to make substitutes, for being reactive rather than proactive. But he made his earliest change yet in introducing Winks for Oli Skipp at half-time, and it worked well.
Skipp had been too slow on the ball and while the state of the game helped Winks, he did take control. He completed double the number of passes Skipp did, moving the ball with more speed, and spreading it out to dangerous areas. Only Wout Faes played more passes into the final third than Winks, while no player set up more shooting chances.
Then, he delivered the match-winning corner. While it may have looked like one, Cooper admitted it was not a set-piece routine. It was simply quick thinking and excellent execution from Winks.
There’s an interesting battle happening in City’s midfield. It had seemed Winks’ spot was totally secure until he was dropped a fortnight ago. But Skipp and Wilfred Ndidi are the best off-the-ball pairing City can field and they played well together against Bournemouth.
Perhaps now knowing his place is under threat has sharpened Winks’ game. Maybe it will be the same for Skipp next week too. If the competition for places raises the standards, that can only be good news for City.
When polled over the international break, 76 per cent of readers said they believed City would stay up. You would not have predicted the figure would be that high given the levels of negativity in the fanbase.
But the surprisingly-high figure may be even higher now. When the players and staff went over to the away end at full-time, a chant of ‘we are staying up’ broke out. It was the first time it had been heard this season. It seems that some of the belief the squad clearly have has spilled into the fanbase.
The good mood is on shaky foundations at the moment. There’s no guarantee that a defeat to Forest won’t lead to anger. But at the very least, chants of confidence in survival show progress is being made.
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