Premier League Player Ratings: Leicester City 0-3 Southampton

Oh boy, that was certainly something, wasn’t it? Last week I was trying to be positive: it only looked bad because Chelsea were so lethal in converting chances. Yesterday, Southampton were actually pretty poor in front of goal, spurning three or four good chances in the opening quarter of an hour.

This season is what we should have expected as Leicester City fans all along of course, but it doesn't quite add up. This side has huge money transfers like Mendy, Musa and Slimani where the 2014-15 team had Dean Hammond, Gary Taylor-Fletcher and Chris Wood. How is it possible they look worse than a team that was locked into 20th for months on end?

Kasper Schmeichel - 6

Made a couple of routine saves and a couple of very good ones, but was just asked to save the day for too often.

Danny Simpson - 5

Never looked comfortable trying to stop Tadic. His only trick to avoid getting beaten is just to stand way off his man, who can then cross as often as he likes. This kind of works when his CBs are playing well but...

Wes Morgan - 3

Caught out of position, beaten for pace, poor passes, weak clearances, missed a sitter and a penalty conceded. If the own goal had stood (and for me it probably should have), you’d have to call that a full house.

There were a lot of discussions at half time and I think we came out in a much more positive frame of mind - I guess the 2nd half was better. Just.

Robert Huth - 4

Really not much better. Should never be beaten in the air by Jay Rodriguez, and even when he won a header it was a perfect assist for a tap in goal.

Christian Fuchs - 4

Could have done with more help, as the Saints exploited our lack of width with their full backs bombing forward. That said, he was also poor when they attacked from the right, consistently being beaten to crosses by smaller players.

Danny Drinkwater - 5

He certainly wasn’t helped by the formation. Not only was there no width, but with Vardy and Gray both naturally drifting to cover the left, while Shinji rarely strayed from the middle, Drinky was again covering the right hand side by himself. That said, the players have to step up as much as the manager and this was an uncharacteristic defensive performance that bordered on lazy.

Wilfred Ndidi - 6

There’s only so much ground one man can cover, but his ball winning was as dependable as ever. Again showed that he can also get on the ball and pass it around a bit, although that part is still developing.

Nampalys Mendy - 4

Gave Fuchs almost no cover on the left even though, as I said above, he had a lot more help than Drinky. You’d hope his passing could make up for it, but it was nothing special at all.

Shinji Okazaki - 4

To me, it felt like the 4-3-3 we saw before was pulled out shape to accommodate Shinji, and he really didn’t do much to justify it. He’s not much of a goalscoring threat, which he makes up for with his defensive effort and his link up play. The former was missing and the latter was poor.

Demarai Gray - 6

Five attempts, four from outside the box. The one from inside was the only shot to test the keeper. While he definitely could have kept his head up and looked for Vardy more, who else looked like scoring?

Jamie Vardy - 5

Just the five touches inside the opposition penalty area. He’s just not playing a strikers role right now. Spent much of the game in the same areas as Gray, but didn’t manager a single shot.

Marc Albrighton - 3

He did help the shape in the second half, with his defensive work down the right and ability to put the ball into dangerous areas. But he also missed with all five crosses, while completing four passes in 45 minutes. Four.

Ahmed Musa - 5

He beat a full back and got the ball into the box a couple of times. It can be hard to contribute when your team doesn’t have the ball much and no one ever seems interested in giving him the ball.

There was no 3rd sub because things were going so well.

Best not to think about it, really. Man of Match is anyone who got up at 4am for this one and made it past half time.