From malaise to melee: Leicester City’s big reset must arrive now
The blessed relief of an international break has given the fanatics among us welcome respite from the weekly travails of Leicester City's torrid 2022/23 season. Now here come eleven games that will have a huge impact on the club’s future.
Think of a Leicester City fanatic and you might immediately picture someone standing on the front row of the Union FS section wearing a bucket hat and twirling a scarf.
Or you might imagine someone poring over a spreadsheet listing years of results, lineups and scorers.
Or someone with a pin badge collection or a programme collection or a bunch of Leicester City tattoos or any amount of Leicester-related paraphernalia.
You might simply think of yourself.
The way a defeat gnaws away at you and you find it hard to settle that evening or even the following morning. The times you've woken up and replayed the previous afternoon's individual errors, the goals, the misses, the saves, the refereeing decisions, and wished certain events to have been different.
If you know, you know.
Obsession
One Saturday morning when I was about 13, I was in the back of my dad's car on the way to a home game. His mate was in the passenger seat and this guy's son, who I didn't know well, was sitting next to me.
I probably talked to him about football the whole way but there was one particular bit that I still remember 25 years on. I asked whether he thought we should play 4-4-2 or 3-5-2 and he looked at me blankly while the adults in the front roared with laughter.
No-one else in that car was as bothered as me about these things. They still wanted Leicester to win but they largely saw it as a day out. It hadn't taken over their lives.
That kind of experience means I find it reassuring to see all the other obsessives going about their business. Putting together podcasts on a Sunday evening. Listening to podcasts on a Monday morning. Getting angry on Twitter about quotes from press conferences. Delving into our manager's past to find past instances when he's used a particular phrase. Trawling eBay for matchworn shirts. Assembling starting elevens.
The problem is that there hasn’t been the same feel among a lot of us for a while now. We’ve been reaching the point of resignation way in advance of feeling any tension.
Sleepwalks and swandives
This season, a lot of the terminology used has been the opposite of fanaticism - talk of sleepwalking to relegation, malaise setting in and fans being dejected, despondent, in the doldrums.
There have been games we've expected to lose, we've lost them and the stadium has been half empty by the time our players are doing their regular lap of misery. In fact, that was the last home game in a nutshell.
This shrugging King Power Stadium is symptomatic of the club's swandive from roaring the team onto the pitch at the Stadio Olimpico around this time last year, and wild celebrations at Wembley 12 months before that.
But the reality is that it won't be like this for much longer.
It can’t be.
We've effectively been in a relegation battle all season but we're really approaching the endgame now - the prime cliche territory, when there will be talk of high stakes, six-pointers, numerous cup finals and, of course, squeaky bums.
Looking at how the other teams involved in the scrap are shaping up off the field, there are a few with a reliable home atmosphere, a few with relatively new managers trying to provide some impetus and a few desperate to cling onto newly-earned top flight status.
Then there’s us.
Two months of torture
Now that this team has finally found an equaliser when behind in the second half of a league game at the seventeenth time of asking, can we be more confident they’re relishing the task ahead?
All I know is that I can already feel what it's going to be like for me during the days in between games. My stomach will be tense and tight. I'll be checking the league table several times a day, almost willing it to change. Games between our relegation rivals will be anxiety-inducing.
Maybe it should have felt like that all season given our position in the league, but it hasn’t. There’s been very little to get excited about - very few signings and, perhaps even more importantly, no new manager to come in and give the place a fresh feel. It’s all felt a bit stale. Even that injection of samba fever at Villa Park lasted a grand total of one game (subject to a second wave).
We’re also not bad enough to be classed as an awful team that can surprise you with the odd result. In short, we’re not Bournemouth - enjoying the ride and still relishing the chance to get one over on the big however-many-it-is-now. We’re just not as good as we should be and we’ve been waiting all season for a proper spark. After a few four-goal false dawns, now we need something more prolonged.
Whether the international break came at a good time for the team will probably be decided, as it was after the World Cup, with the benefit of hindsight depending on what happens in the next week or so. There’s certainly an argument it came at a good time for the fans. I usually hate international breaks. This one has been so refreshing. But now it’s over and the business end of the season must begin.
Brendan Rodgers talked about the need for a reset last summer. As we enter the final two months of the campaign, it can’t come from any more new signings. It also seemingly won’t come from a managerial change. Like it or not, it’s going to have to come from events on the pitch.
The games will be arriving thick and fast now. It’s time to build up some momentum. Strap yourself in. Here we go.
