BREAKING NEWS: Van Nistelrooy reaction to Leicester City winger exposes problem amid standby transfer need
Talking points from Leicester City’s 4-0 defeat to Newcastle, looking at why the defence played so poorly, the back-up midfield, Mads Hermansen’s injury, and more
Van Nistelrooy knew as much and wrapped the game up himself after an hour. Moments after making a triple sub, the City boss watched his side concede a fourth. The hand signals and head shakes from the touchline afterwards suggested he was telling his players to calm down, be compact and simply avoid the goal difference becoming any worse. They didn’t have a touch in Newcastle’s box, never mind a shot, after that point.
So it was a chastening first loss in charge for van Nistelrooy. But it will provide more lessons than the previous week’s good results against West Ham and Brighton. The manager said himself: “From defeat, you’re always going to learn more.”
Van Nistelrooy’s experience as a manager before City had been with one of the better squads in a league. This would have been eye-opening for the Dutchman as to what can happen when one of the weaker squads is missing a handful of starters and performs poorly. Even against an out-of-form mid-table side, you can be utterly dismantled.
It will be interesting to see how the lessons learned affect City going forward. Becoming more compact in defence may only make the attack more toothless. Trying to make the attack more threatening may only open the defence to a greater degree. The limitations of the squad have to be considered too.
A change in manager was not going to solve all of City’s issues in one fell swoop. Keeping this club in the Premier League is a difficult task, which van Nistelrooy, if he didn’t before, will now know.
Van Nistelrooy reaction to McAteer shows where problem lies
The manager is not one for hiding from the truth. His post-match assessment included the succinct summary: “We defended bad.”
The alarming number of chances Newcastle created was especially disappointing and confounding given the improvements City had made at the back against Brighton. But against the Seagulls, City kept the ball better, and that seems to be key.
At Newcastle, City had just 41 per cent of the possession, down from 56 per cent against Brighton the weekend before. Keeping the ball doesn’t have to be decisive in the result, but if City let their opponents have a good majority, their defensive structures and off-the-ball work will be tested more often. Right now, they are better at the back when they avoid the issue of defending entirely.
So their pass completion rate needs to be good. It wasn’t. In fact, for passes of more than 15 yards, they had their lowest completion rate of the season.
The instinct is perhaps to criticise those playing the passes for not being accurate enough, but van Nistelrooy’s expressions in the technical area told another story. There was one moment during the first half where City’s defence opened up the space for Mads Hermansen to pick out Kasey McAteer. But the winger wasn’t quick enough or alert enough to drop into the space and receive the ball, with Lewis Hall sharper to it, pinching possession and starting another Newcastle attack.
Van Nistelrooy stood with his arms outstretched for a good five seconds, as if to ask why McAteer wasn’t where he was supposed to be. He was the only guilty party. Jamie Vardy and Stephy Mavididi didn’t show well enough for the ball either, the latter receiving encouragement that bordered on a telling off from the manager in the second half.
The plan with those passes is to get City up the pitch more quickly and to beat Newcastle’s lines of defence more efficiently. They are high risk, high reward. Very few came off and it only led to more and more attacks for the home side.
Back-up midfielders no comparison as transfer fee so far unjustified
Against West Ham, when City had a comparative level of possession, deep midfield duo Wilfred Ndidi and Boubakary Soumare made a combined 15 tackles and interceptions. At St James’ Park, Oliver Skipp and Hamza Choudhury made three.
Without either of van Nistelrooy’s first-choice midfield duo, City’s defence didn’t have the protection it needed. The back-ups weren’t up to scratch.
There was no lack of effort, but Hamza Choudhury was off the pace. That’s understandable, as he hadn’t played a single minute since September, but it meant he had very little impact on the game.
For Skipp, it was always going to take more than a few appearances for his £20m price-tag to be justified, but at the moment there’s a lack of evidence for why City spent so much on him. His scampering has had a positive impact in a few matches, but he can’t physically dominate like Ndidi and Soumare can, and he can’t manipulate the tempo like Harry Winks, meaning City often lack control when he’s on the pitch.
