Brendan Rodgers needs to be sacked by Leicester. Leicester City has lost again as Brighton beat them 5-2, despite this being a ‘must win’ for the Foxes.
Leicester fans must be sick and tired of Brendan Rodgers by now, especially since the Foxes have now lost a FIFTH game in a row. Yes, Leicester City, the FA Cup Champions only two years ago, have now lost a fifth successive Premier League match that keeps them glued to the very bottom of the Premier League.
Yet, they actually came out flying as Kelechi Iheanacho scored only 53 seconds into the game. The whole move came from Youri Tielemans, Leicester best player, as he stole the ball off Solly March deep in the Brighton half and then sent a pass to Harvey Barnes, who found Patson Daka on the edge of the box, who then whipped a ball past an outstretching Robert Sanchez that found Iheanacho.
With an empty net, not even Iheanacho could have missed.
However, Leicester stupidly gave away their lead with some awful defending. Only eight minutes later, Brighton’s Pascal Gross (yeah, a really unfortunate last name) whipped in a very tame cross that beat everyone, except for an uncovered Leandro Trossard. He then proceeded to dink a ball to the backpost that Solly March headed off Luke Thomas and into the Foxes’ net.
This goal just signifies everything that has gone wrong at Leicester this season. Zero urgency, leaving players wide open, bad defending, and just terrible luck.
And Leicester’s woes just continued from there as Brighton kept pressing, nearly scoring off a Danny Welbeck header, before they did finally find the breakthrough for their first lead of the game. That came in the form of James Maddison.
For some reason, James Maddison inexplicably passed the ball right to Enock Mwepu in the middle of the field. Mwepu shook off Maddison’s lazy attempt to win the ball back, drove at the Leicester defense until he reached the 18-yard box, then calmly rolled a pass to Moises Caicedo, who fired a shot across Danny Ward and into Leicester’s goal.
There is just so much that Leicester did wrong on that goal: A. What was Maddison thinking with that pass? B. Why didn’t Leicester’s midfield track back to stop Mwepu. C. Why did Evans leave Caicedo when Mwepu was running out of space? D. Did Ward realize that he could close down attackers? Watch that goal back and see how Ward played that shot. He looked scared!
Anyway, Brighton should have scored again as Danny Welbeck caught Danny Ward in possession (what a surprise) but chipped the ball over the bar. And, judging by the screaming match between Ward and Ndidi (who passed him the ball in the first place) after that chance, this Leicester team is in complete freefall behind the scenes too.
But, as I said earlier, Youri Tielemans proved why he’s so vital to this Leicester team as, on the 32′ mark, as he dinked a ball over the entire Brighton defense, sending Daka clean through on goal.
And, thankfully, for Brendan Rodgers’ sanity, he smashed the ball past Robert Sanchez to tie the game 2-2.
Leicester actually regained a foothold in the game at that point as Harvey Barnes got off a good shot on target just afterwards, but both teams went into halftime tied 2-2.
And then, coming out of halftime, Leicester City utterly collapsed.
Only one minute into the second half, Alexis Mac Allister scored one of the best goals anyone will see all season long as he rifled an outside-the-box shot into the top corner. Unfortunately for Brighton, Mwepu touched the ball in an offside position just before MacAllister scored. So, the goal was chalked off.
Fortunately for Brighton, Leicester City gave them two goals back as they completely switched off defensively, thus allowing Trossard to score on the 67′ and win a penalty on the 70′ (which Mac Allister scored). After that point, Brighton just peppered Danny Ward in the Foxes goal.
Brighton had over 23 shots against Leicester, with 11 ON TARGET!
Simply put, the Leicester gave up on Ward, Rodgers, the fans, and themselves as Brighton put them to the sword in those final twenty minutes. MacAllister made up for his offside goal with a beautiful free kick strike deep into stoppage time to make it 5-2, but the game was well and truly over after 45 minutes.
Like I said earlier, Brendan Rodgers NEEDS TO BE SACKED or Leicester will go down.
I have absolutely no doubt about that after watching this game. Every Leicester player was snapping, arguing, and giving up on one another whenever something went wrong, while Rodgers stood motionless on the sidelines. That’s such and indicting look.
Not only has he lost this dressing room, but he has also allowed it to fester and rot before our very eyes. If the Leicester ownership doesn’t change something soon, Rodgers will doom this team to the Championship.
As for Brighton, they were superb again. Graham Potter is undoubtably one of the very best managers in England as he has turned this team, which was relegation fodder under Chris Hutton, into true Top-6/8 contenders. He’s done a magnificent job and deserves an opportunity to work with some of the bigger teams in England once this season wraps up.
A team like…Leicester, if they’re still in the Premier League.
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