As Manchester United jolt back to life with a first win in four, there is at least no prospect of Leicester sleep-walking towards relegation. That danger is now all too real, and this situation looks so much more than a hangover from last season. This was an especially alarming 3-0 defeat for the defending champions, a status made even more staggering by the way Jose Mourinho’s side so easily cut through them.
The fourth loss in five games since their last victory, and the third time in that spell they’ve conceded three goals, it leaves Leicester just a point clear of the relegation zone, while putting United within two of the top four.
United still actually weren’t at their best in this game, but the way they took their goals was supreme.
For the first, Robert Huth was completely wrong-footed on the half-way line to leave Henrikh Mkhitaryan clean through on goal to finish. For the second, Antonio Valencia crossed for Zlatan Ibrahimovic to brilliantly put the ball through Wes Morgan’s legs and past Kasper Schmeichel. For the third, there wasn’t even that kind of meek resistance as Mkhitaryan divinely fed Juan Mata for the playmaker to finish.
There was an argument that Mata shouldn’t even have been on the pitch, after a wild challenge on Jamie Vardy that brought a very physical and combative period in the first half to an unsavoury peak. Vardy himself had got into a scuffle with Eric Bailly as both fell to the ground after a chase, and there were sparks between Huth and Marcos Rojo.
If that suggested Leicester won’t go down without a fight, what followed didn’t. More worrying than anything was the fact that it was so obviously game over once United got just one goal. That is how down Leicester are right now, lacking in any kind of conviction.
It was also that goal that highlighted one specific major problem in Leicester’s general malaise. As Chris Smalling played the ball forward for Mkhitaryan to run onto, Huth was forced to step forward in a way that he just didn’t last season – and in a way that just doesn’t suit his lack of mobility – because N’Golo Kante wasn’t there.
So much has been made of the loss of the indomitable French international, but it was never more relevant as in this game, and in that moment. It was a classic case study in what is really wrong with Leicester, and why so many of their problems have gathered pace.
Kante’s relentless running is always brought up, and it really isn’t exaggeration to say he did the work of four men – including, obviously, himself. The key was that his ability to improbably cover so much of the pitch meant that two solid but slow defenders in Huth and Morgan were able to just stay in the same area and stand up strong. They never had to come out, and there were so rarely any holes in that solid-steel structure. In front of them, then, Kante’s willingness to win ensured Danny Drinkwater could concentrate on picking out passes.
Claudio Ranieri, however, doesn’t seem to have fully adapted his tactics to this massive alteration. It is as if Huth, Morgan and Drinkwater are all expected to do the same jobs, but in a completely different set-up. Huth and Morgan are particularly exposed, and look so much worse than last season, because more of their weaknesses are brought into the game.
It is also no coincidence the Mkhitaryan was able to do conduct the game so beautifully, since he just had so much space in front of that central defence. Almost every movement offered by the Armenian exuded elegance, but with a cutting efficiency and some of his link-ups with Mata, Marcus Rashford and Ibrahimovic were sublime. Eden Hazard argued during the week that Mourinho’s attacking approach leaves a lot of individual freedom to the players, in contrast to the co-ordinated “automatisms” of Antonio Conte, but games like this show the positives of that. Players like Mkhitaryan can flourish, especially when they don’t have someone close to Kante’s ability closing them down.
There is more to it, of course, than the loss of Kante. Players like Vardy and Riyad Mahrez are also playing with much less focus, and there still feels like there’s almost a fog of unexpected victory around the place. They need it to clear, or they could soon face the storm of one of the most sensational collapses ever.
It summed up how lackadaisical they are right now that, when Leicester finally had a shot in the second half, Wilfred Ndidi waywardly skied it nowhere near the goal.
United, meanwhile, are much closer to the top four and may at last be closing in on teams above them who are no longer winning with anything like the regularity they had been. If ruthless attacking performances like this continue, they could finally escape sixth.
It’s just that they won’t get to play a side as poor as Leicester so often, the champions who may well struggle to escape relegation.
The champions. It’s a status that now seems even more surreal than it did in May 2016.
That whole season feels like an illusion. Leicester’s resistance here was certainly illusory, as United – and Mkhitaryan – were left to illuminate things.
