Oh, he’s really Madd now: Leicester City 4 Nottingham Forest 0 (3 October 2022)
via @JamieBarnard88
There are some nights when the performance really doesn't matter. When you just need to win whatever the cost, scrapping it out like rabid animals until one of you hobbles away in ugly defeat.
Monday night should have been one of such nights, under the King Power lights for a first top-flight fixture against Forest since 1999. But the best part? It wasn't. This was a Leicester City side playing with their heads screwed on and chests puffed out. A side playing for pride thought to have been lost for good at the City Ground in February.
When you've just had your backsides smacked for six games in a row, there's nothing quite like a 4-0 home win – yes, a real zero in the opposition column! – to soothe the pain. We might wonder what had happened if Taiwo Awoniyi hadn't scuffed a glorious opening chance onto a post, but in reality this was a night where fate was not on Forest's side. Or any discernible quality, for that matter.
Oh, we’re smiling
From the moment Union FS unfurled their latest creation before kickoff, this was always Leicester's night; When You're Smiling got a rousing rendition, and the players responded accordingly.
Forest might have had something we didn't at that point – a single, miserable victory – but that was about it. They certainly didn't have James Maddison, who was head and shoulders above the rest in one of his best displays of 2022. The intent was loaded five minutes in, when he put 16-cap Brazil international Renan Lodi on his backside and clipped in a cross that Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall arguably should have nodded home.
Sixteen minutes in, the shot count read seven to two in Leicester's favour – but only one on target. But it never felt like one of those nights. The swell of pressure meant something was always coming: it was just a matter of how, and who from.
Even set-pieces showed serious promise at both ends: in another commanding display, Wout Faes was among those keeping the ball out at one end; at the other, a couple of genuinely inventive plays (welcome, Lars Knudsen) led to Jamie Vardy twice almost taking advantage.
Madd about Gareth
For 90 minutes, man to man, this was mostly very good. Mostly. After 21 minutes, a very promising start could have been laid to waste when Morgan Gibbs-White sliced through our midfield with depressing ease, slipping in Awoniyi for his gilt-edged opportunity. Thankfully, the summer arrival from Union Berlin handled it with all the grace of a bloke whose feet were tied together. Later, with Forest 3-0 down, Brennan Johnson would do the same with an open goal at his mercy, after a bizarre punt forward that caught Faes short.
So... mostly good. In some cases, it was glitteringly gorgeous – but when you've got Maddison showing the way like a bright torch in the dark, that can happen. His first goal was somewhat fortuitous, but there was no such luck with the second: the sort of trademark free-kick which he appears to be getting even better at.
In between, the sight of Harvey Barnes bearing down on goal, cutting inside and letting rip with an unstoppable effort into the corner was a joy to behold. It used to be the sort of thing he did for fun. The great hope now is that he'll bottle such confidence and unleash it more regularly. Again, his link-up with Dewsbury-Hall was potent and promising.
It was hugely satisfying to see Patson Daka get on the scoresheet with his beautifully taken flick, too – and after a night that wasn't Vardy's, the very healthy question will finally be asked: who actually deserves to be starting upfront in this team right now? That's not to consign our greatest ever player to the grave by any stretch: this is ultimately the succession plan we've been craving for years.
The biggest surprise of the night, though, might just have been a) Danny Ward b) making saves, c) looking good and d) keeping an actual clean sheet. Well done that man.
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If Leicester can play with this kind of verve and vigour more frequently, the disquiet around Rodgers' future will be reduced to a simmer in the short-term. He needs that as much as we do. This isn't all forgiven – far from it – but it's a start.
Leicester won't face opposition this bad again in 2021-22. Forest look genuinely doomed at this point, on the verge of changing a manager they wanted to build a statue for months ago, and with plenty of tougher opposition to come.
As such, it's hard to know how much of this to take forward and apply against tougher opposition, but Monday night really wasn't about that – it was about winning first and foremost, and putting some smiles back on faces. Rodgers' Leicester did that, and for which the manager also deserves some credit.
As for what's next? Well, it's over to you boys once again. Chase this feeling.
