Tottenham 3-1 Leicester: reviewing the key battles

Leicester City might have put in their strongest performance of 2019, though it came to nothing as they to Tottenham Hotspur at Wembley. Before the game, we highlighted to some important areas the Foxes should look out for, so now we’ll look back on them and see what we can learn.

1. Own the six yard box

Uh huh. I pointed out that both teams have been pretty good at generating and preventing chances in the six-yard box, which its fairly obvious are quite likely to result in goals. Each side created exactly one chance that close, and both ended up in goals, so you could say this one was equal.

Of course, as we’ve seen all year, the timing of these things is also pretty important. The Foxes had had a great half and were looking in control, having created the better chances to that point. Then Harry Maguire allowed Davinson Sanchez to get in front of him inside his own six yard box, which should never happen for a defender of his quality (and size) and suddenly the game was turned on it’s head and we chasing again.

That opened us up more as we needed to push forward, leaving more space and forcing players to take more risks, which cost us as a Ricardo mistake lead to the second goal. Eventually we got our own chance, from some mesmerising build up, but it was too late by then.

2. All eyes on Son

So I’m 2/2 here, but let’s be honest, it wasn’t the most insightful of commentary. The guy’s their best form striker right now, and has a devastating recent history against us.

Still, for most of the game, he was kept very quiet. While he was at fault for the first goal, Maguire in many ways had a fantastic game, seeming to be right on the spot every time Son got on the ball, giving him no room to operate. It wasn’t until a slip from Wilfred Ndidi gave him all the space in world that one of the league’s most dangerous players was able to influence the game at all.

3. Play from the whistle. Please.

This one I got wrong. With the way the last few games had gone, it really did feel like if we survived the first 15 minutes, suddenly our problems would be fixed. Turns out that slow starts were a symptom, not the cause.

Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images

The Foxes are simply not clinical enough at the moment. Some will put that down to not starting Jamie Vardy, and he did score the goal, but he’s been as much a culprit as anyone over the rest of the season.

They are a very young team. At this point, I’m not sure what you can do but hope that a lack of experience is what’s creating our problems in front of goal (at both ends). Young players like Harvey Barnes, by far the most wasteful on Sunday, will make mistakes, and hopefully a little bit of faith will pay off as they gain more experience and start to take their chances.