Huddersfield Town were convincingly beaten once again in the Premier League. This time it was Leicester that willingly took advantage of Town’s generous nature. Despite Town’s hard work, there was a lack of creativity and trickery that made Leicester’s afternoon far easier than it should have been.
Löwe and Mooy start on the wings
I think Siewert’s team selections so far have been good. He’s been willing to drop established players in favour of those he thinks can do a better job and has shown he’s got different ideas to David Wagner about how to get the best out of this squad.
Having said that, I think he made an error in putting Mooy and Löwe on the wings at the start of yesterday’s game. I wouldn’t say either of them had a bad game, in fact Löwe was picked for Man of the Match, but neither is a natural winger and we lacked penetration in wide areas.
The wings have been a problem area for Town in the last two seasons, but playing a fullback and a defensive midfielder in these positions meant that we had little threat going forward and it meant Grant was isolated up front for long periods of the game.
Mbenza makes an impact
Issac Mbenza’s made his return from injury in the second half and gave us a glimpse of what he’s capable of. It’s no coincidence that we enjoyed our best attacking spell of the game in the fifteen minutes after he came on, as his pace gave us an outlet when we attacked and he was able to repeatedly get in behind Leicester’s defensive line.
There’s still a rawness about Mbenza’s play when he’s in the final third, but it was his run and heavy touch that created the situation where we won our first penalty of the season. He also put in a wonderful cross that Grant connected with but forced a great save from Schmeichel.
Given that Mbenza’s loan deal ends in the summer, we may not see much more of him in a Town shirt. However, if he impresses in the next few games and the money adds up then it may make sense to sign him up for next season’s Championship campaign.
Hamer’s bad day
I’m not a fan of singling out individual players but it’s hard to write about this game without brining up Hamer’s performance between the sticks. He started the game poorly, showing some nervy moments when handling the ball and his distribution was sloppy at times. It was his performance for the goals that was most concerning:
- Tielemans goal looked like a cracking strike when I saw it fly in live but the replay showed that Hamer could have done better. He seemed to duck out of the way of the ball as it came towards him and gave himself no chance of getting near it.
- The second goal was basically a tap in for Vardy because Hamer got caught between cutting out the cross and staying on his line which meant he did neither. The ball into the box was great but if Hamer had come off his line with conviction he could have snuffed it out.
- Madison’s free kick was a superb strike but Hamer’s starting position gave too much space for Maddison to aim for at the far post. Hamer was also moving in the wrong direction when the ball was struck so he gave himself no chance of getting near it.
In Hamer’s defence, he did well to get a strong glove on Vardy’s penalty but wasn’t quite able to stop it from going in. He also made a couple of decent saves in the game too. However, I’m pretty sure Hamer himself will accept that he could have done better.
I think there’s a big difference between being a bad goalkeeper and having a bad game. Hamer’s a decent enough keeper but there have been occasions this season where he’s made mistakes. I doubt there are many keepers better than him in the Championship, so it may be worth keeping the faith and giving him a chance to rebuild his confidence in the next few games where the stakes aren’t as high.
Leicester fans make an impressive noise
To finish on a positive, while many Premier League clubs away followings have provided poor support to their teams at the John Smith’s Stadium, Leicester’s fans were in good voice throughout. Winning easily and scoring four makes it easier to stay in good voice, but I was still impressed by the noise they made. I suspect we’ll see an increase in passion and volume from the away end once we’re back in the Championship and away from the Premier League’s prawn-sandwich-loving fans.
***UPDATE*** The above paragraph has been amended. I misheard the chant Leicester were singing throughout the game as “Champions of England, you’ll never sing that”, and had a unjustified moan about a chant that didn’t happen. Leicester fans were actually singing “you made us sing that” at the end, in tribute to Vichai Srivaddhanaprabha.
Apologies to the Leicester fans, I got it completely wrong and feel like a bit of an idiot. I am genuinely sorry.
I’m no fan of Hamer either. But I have to sympathise with him about Maddison’s free kick. He, like most of us, expected Madison to put the ball over the wall and under the bar. We’ve seen him do it consistently on the box. There aren’t many players who can almost guarantee to do that, but he is definitely one. Unfortunately, he can also bend it in at the far post. Against most other players, Hamer could have left his near post to the wall and concentrated on his far post. Maddison is just too good to make that easy option available. So Hamer tried to cover both options and ended up being bamboozled. Having said that, he is not the answer for next year. We either buy or hope that Coleman is better than Shrewsbury seemed to think.
I’m a Leicester fan – I come in peace. I think it is worth pointing out that our supporters were not singing “Champions of England; you’ll never sing that” to your fans. Rather it was part of a song in tribute to our late Chairman, Khun Vichai, and the words actually being sung were; ” Champions of England; you made us sing that.” The “you” being Vichai himself…a subtle difference I know, but I think one that changes the whole meaning of the song…
Thanks for letting me know, that makes much more sense. I’m genuinely sorry for the original version of the article and I’ve amended it now to take out the inaccurate section. All the best for the rest of the season.
Sorry to disappoint you , but Leicester fans were singing “champions of england, you made us sing that “. It’s in honour of Vichai.
Thanks for pointing it out. I’ve amended the article and I’m sorry for the misunderstanding.