Bristol City 2-2 LCFC - Post Match Thread

[Haywood_6]

We we're basically on life support that second half and waiting to be put out of our misery

[Lad1966]

The fact they score within a minute after the break, obviously this gave them a big lift and put us on the back foot. If we managed to not concede for at least 15 mins, things may have been different!

[Noahfence]

How did Aluko & Page look? I couldn’t watch the last 15 mins or so

[Guest worth_the_wait]

Looking on the bright side ...

 

At least we're capable of having half a good game.   Last season we were mostly sh*t all match.

 

We're getting some good practice at playing without the ball.   We've spent most of the last 5+ years expecting to be the team in possession.

 

We're showing a bit of resilience at hanging in there.   Some of our recent teams would've definitely lost last night's game 4-2.

 

Many of our youngsters are now getting a bit of game time.   

[Pliskin]

21 minutes ago, Noahfence said:

How did Aluko & Page look? I couldn’t watch the last 15 mins or so

I thought Aluko looked good. Miles better than Hamza at RB, and he offered a hell of a lot more than Thomas. Thomas needs dropping for Aluko who needs a run of games now. 
 

Thomas was embarrassing last night, he’s forever in the wrong position, falling over or making ****ing stupid decisions, how he is a professional football if beyond me, I reckon I’d be better at left back than him.

[Richmondfox]

11 minutes ago, Pliskin said:

I thought Aluko looked good. Miles better than Hamza at RB, and he offered a hell of a lot more than Thomas. Thomas needs dropping for Aluko who needs a run of games now. 
 

Thomas was embarrassing last night, he’s forever in the wrong position, falling over or making ****ing stupid decisions, how he is a professional football if beyond me, I reckon I’d be better at left back than him.

The Derby game for Thomas was just one of those anomalies, like when you were younger and managed to pull a stunner in a club, no one can explain it and it doesn’t happen again. 
 

Him and JV cause so much chaos in defence, they can’t clear the ball or make tackles when they try and clear the ball. He didn’t offer any help at all yesterday.  At the end of the game he got the ball out side the box with plenty of time to cross, didn’t do anything and then turned and passed it back. 
 

All a team has to do is press and they crumble, yet still want to piss around controlling the ball. Even Silko got a shot on target, more than Daka and Ayew can muster.

 

Our team never presses, they give up 1m away and let them pass/cross. The opposition stop pressing once we have made an error. Bristol full backs had all the time in the world to cross and had 4 players most of the time in the box. We have Mav trying to do step overs and not crossing, 

 

Fatawu is just lazy and undisciplined, he really needs guidance.  JJ had the ball on the wing after driving forwards and has 2 me on him, Fats stands behind him when he could’ve just ran into the space the was obvious JJ was waiting to do. Both our wingers are brain dead and greedy but can produce the goods when they run with the ball into space and cross quickly. 

[purpleronnie]

I'm surprised Stolarczyk hasn't had more criticism, beaten near post twice.

[filbertway]

I disagree with the fitness shout, as soon as it got back to 2-2 we looked a lot more lively and players were sprinting and working for the ball again.

 

To me it definitely looks more like a mindset or tactical thing.

[filbertway]

13 minutes ago, purpleronnie said:

I'm surprised Stolarczyk hasn't had more criticism, beaten near post twice.

Just glad Gary Neville wasn't on comms. Pretty sure the guy thinks that the keeper should just stand on the near post and leave the far post wide open

 

If you want to see what that looks like, watch Danny Ward.

 

Edited 11 December 2025 by filbertway

[Pliskin]

3 minutes ago, Richmondfox said:

The Derby game for Thomas was just one of those anomalies, like when you were younger and managed to pull a stunner in a club, no one can explain it and it doesn’t happen again. 
 

Him and JV cause so much chaos in defence, they can’t clear the ball or make tackles when they try and clear the ball. He didn’t offer any help at all yesterday.  At the end of the game he got the ball out side the box with plenty of time to cross, didn’t do anything and then turned and passed it back. 
 

All a team has to do is press and they crumble, yet still want to piss around controlling the ball. Even Silko got a shot on target, more than Daka and Ayew can muster.

 

Our team never presses, they give up 1m away and let them pass/cross. The opposition stop pressing once we have made an error. Bristol full backs had all the time in the world to cross and had 4 players most of the time in the box. We have Mav trying to do step overs and not crossing, 

 

Fatawu is just lazy and undisciplined, he really needs guidance.  JJ had the ball on the wing after driving forwards and has 2 me on him, Fats stands behind him when he could’ve just ran into the space the was obvious JJ was waiting to do. Both our wingers are brain dead and greedy but can produce the goods when they run with the ball into space and cross quickly. 

Agree with all of this. You’re spot on with Thomas and JV. Thomas was an abomination for their first goal, he spent the whole sequence falling over and just struggling to cope, he the. Allows the scorer to essentially have the run of the penalty area…. 
 

You’re not wrong with Fatawu either, and this is a very good point you raise, under Enzo Fatawu was disciplined, he had to be otherwise he would have been dropped. It’s clear from this point you make there’s no structure to what Martinis trying to do, no plan, and no identity clearly no clear instruction. It’s clear from the way we fall apart time and time again, there’s clearly no clear plan?
 

Regardless of the quality in the team, with a structured plan, you should be able to hold onto a 0-2 lead….. 

[Guest]

2 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I disagree with the fitness shout, as soon as it got back to 2-2 we looked a lot more lively and players were sprinting and working for the ball again.

 

To me it definitely looks more like a mindset or tactical thing.

Same. I can accept there's a possibility we're not very fit relative to some other teams, but to the extent that we're blowing so badly after 45 minutes that we physically have no choice but to drop off? Not having it

[jv1]

1 hour ago, The Fosse Way said:

TFW match report

https://thefosseway.net/2025/12/11/bristol-city-2-leicester-city-2-the-one-half-wonders/

 

We have spent so much of the last 12 years on a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, that watching a mediocre, mid-table season unfurl in front of us is a strange experience.

 

Every game feels like a referendum, before turning out to be much less important than we think. Each week you turn towards the league table for answers and find that yes, we’re still just outside the top six.

 

More than that, each performance from this Leicester City team confirms whatever prior belief you had about them.

 

At this point, either you think there’s no point sacking yet another manager and that Marti Cifuentes is doing a reasonable job in the circumstances, or you think he has shown little to suggest he is getting the best out of this team and mid-table is an unacceptable return.

 

How wonderful then that this trip to Ashton Gate provided 45 minutes of ammunition for the first argument, followed by 45 minutes of support for the second.

 

At the interval, you could plausibly draw a line from Cifuentes’ half time changes against Sheffield United a fortnight ago to Wednesday evening and argue that Leicester City were fixed. The balance sheet in the 180 minutes since that moment showed seven goals scored to only one conceded. Seven goals is an awful lot for this Leicester team, it had taken them eight games to score as many before this flurry.

 

Along with the raw numbers, there were positive signs in the performances as well. Bristol City looked like an extension of the mini-comeback against Sheffield United and then the win over Derby. The midfield trio, shorn of Harry Winks and Boubakary Soumare’s ponderous play, was more slick and energetic. They were moving the ball quicker, getting it forward and into wide areas with intent.

 

Moving the ball faster is one of those things that is so obvious it’s hard to understand why teams struggle so much to do it. The knock-on effect of fast interchanges through midfield and more direct passing from the centre backs into the forward line is that the wingers find themselves in one-on-one situations, as opposed to being endlessly double, or even triple, marked.

 

Suddenly, Stephy Mavididi looks a far more dangerous player. He is basically good enough to be a real threat to any team if you keep allowing him to isolate defenders and drive inside at them. He’s much less effective if he’s held out wide and forced towards the byline. To maximise his strengths he has to get the ball quickly and often, ideally before the defence has had time to reset into a low block.

 

Leicester did this well in the first half, particularly for the first 20 minutes of the game. Mavididi was creating chances, fashioning opportunities for himself, and got on the end of a back post cross that he headed off the top of the crossbar. He then did Scott Twine all ends up to win the penalty that Jordan Ayew converted.

 

Along with the midfielders, Ben Nelson and Ayew himself were key parts of the first half display. The contrast between the air of calm that seems to surround Nelson, and the air of ‘inflatable flapping about in a 100mph hurricane’ that follows Faes around is something to behold. The defence looks more composed with him in it, even if it isn’t actually good.

 

He also offers glimpses of a quality range of passing, some of which went directly into Ayew and which the latter did an excellent job of coming deep to receive the ball to feet. Ayew is good at this very specific thing and not much else; if you could treat him like a table football player and affix a giant pole through his chest about 40 yards out so he didn’t have to worry about ever going forward into the opposition third, he would be brilliant.

 

Leicester were largely in control of the first half, though that had slipped away a little in the latter stages. The second goal, when it came, kind of happened out of nowhere and had nothing to do with any of the bits of football that had looked good prior to this. Abdul Fatawu got the ball on the half way line, ran all the way to the edge of the box, did two Bristol City players on the byline and squared for Bobby De Cordova Reid to score (again).

 

This was a good goal, if a woeful defensive effort from Bristol City. It also summed up the strange season Fatawu is having. He did little else all game, even his trademark wild shot from range was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s frustrated or trying too hard to pull off a magic moment every time, but Leicester need him to be much more involved.

 

So there we are with the good bits. At half time, the Foxes looked pretty comfortable. Bristol City had moments before the break but they hadn’t looked anything special.

 

Within a minute of the restart this shimmering dreamworld was shattered by the reality of supporting this team. The hosts came out of the blocks like a cannon, Jannik Vestergaard tried to do too much in blocking a cross and diverted it straight to Mark Sykes, who put it past Jakub Stolarczyk.

 

Bristol City were excellent in the second half. Their intensity kept Leicester pinned back for more or less the entire rest of the game and they created enough chances to win. Stolarczyk was forced into a lot of saves, which he pulled off to varying degrees of competence.

The Robins amassed 14 shots in the second half alone. Many of these were headers, which are not always as good chances as they seem, but on at least a couple of occasions they rose unchallenged only to put the header straight at the goalkeeper. On another, Sinclair Armstrong headed a header that was probably going in anyway up and onto the woodwork, where it bounced out, ricocheted off someone else and somehow slipped wide.

 

The question from a Leicester perspective is why and how we failed to respond to this in any way. It’s one thing for the opposition to play well, it’s another thing to be completely unable to react to it. Leicester have two fast wingers, before long they had Patson Daka on as well, and yet there was nothing resembling the threat of a counter attack.

 

There was also little by way of defensive organisation. It’s perfectly reasonable to defend more when you’re ahead, the issue is that there’s no point doing that if you’re going to give up so many shots and concede loads of goals. You may as well keep trying to attack. Even feeding Ayew to fall over and win free kicks would have been a better strategy than camping back in our own box.

 

To reiterate, Bristol City played well. But this is Bristol City, 10th in the Championship. Not Arsenal or Manchester City. Not even Southampton or Sheffield United, who are either armed with parachute payments or were one of the best Championship teams not to get promoted last term. It’s implausible to argue that Leicester have to accept being outplayed by anyone and everyone. Aw shucks, what can you do. Rudkin out!

 

Perhaps the most concerning part of the second half was the way in which Cifuentes tried and failed to impact the game. He is constrained by his bench and if you add 50% of your senior midfielders to the bomb squad then you’re going to lack options. At the same time, after one minute of the second half the game had changed significantly, and his reaction was baffling in the extreme.

 

On a tactical level, the decision to replace Jordan James with Patson Daka and play De Cordova Reid in midfield after 10 minutes of being completely outplayed is one of the stranger substitutions in the annals of Leicester City history. Rarely can a change ever have been so obviously destined to be a disaster. A few minutes later, Cifuentes had to fix the inevitable gaping hole in central midfield by bringing on Bade Aluko and shifting Hamza Choudhury into the middle.

 

Once Bristol City had equalised, thanks to an absolutely dreadful defensive effort from everybody concerned, he rushed on Louis Page and the inevitable Silko Thomas for Mavididi and Fatawu. It meant that at 2-2, Leicester’s forward line was comprised of Thomas, Page, Ayew, and Daka. Like sending out Mr. Blobby to storm Helm’s Deep.

 

There is also a more strategic question, which is why his team cannot escape when they’re under pressure. For as much as there is a lack of quality, such as Daka coming on to immediately lose the ball with his first two touches, any team should be able to create the odd counter attack. Even when Andorra come to Wembley they have a couple of attacks.

 

Leicester, on the other hand, failed to put the pressure back on Bristol City at all. It became like an attack v defence training game for long stretches of time. The home team put an astonishing 35 crosses into the Leicester box. It took until the last minute for Leicester to register their first shot of the half, and that was Ayew blazing over from 35 yards.

 

Some late lipstick on the pig, thanks to Silko Thomas forcing a save from range at the death, makes the stats look better but doesn’t change the reality of how passive this team was for so long.

 

The difficulty in making any definite judgement about the manager and how good Leicester are is that there is always a counter argument. The second half here was one of the worst you’re ever likely to see, but the first half was pretty good. Some variation of that applies to the whole season.

 

If you peek behind the curtain, though, the underlying numbers remain those of a poor bottom half team. Even the good halves are not that good, and they are being overwhelmed by how bad the bad halves are. This was another game in which Leicester were comfortably beaten according to xG.

 

Cifuentes is just about keeping his head above water thanks to these occasional strong passages of play – the doomed comeback at Sheffield United, a strong start at Derby, then a good first half here. But for us to believe in the long term potential at all then they need to build on them, rather than reverting to type at the first opportunity.

 

Maybe this is one step forward, two steps back approach is how things are going to be, at least until the points deduction is confirmed. Leicester are treading water until further notice and that is good enough to hold off any argument that we deserve anything better.

We’re fine, middle-of-the-road. You win some, you lose some, you draw a lot. If you need us, we’ll be a couple of points off the playoffs.

Superb write up and post - maybe the most accurate summary iv seen of us for a long time - great stuff mate - it’s going to be a long season and maybe a long next 5 years that’s for sure 

[Sol thewall Bamba]

Luke Thomas' post match comments 

"It's a hard one to take, but we'll bounce back and come back stronger".

 

"We'll have even more desire to get back where we want to get".

 

Oh hang on those quotes were from 5 seasons ago. 

[ClaphamFox]

5 minutes ago, filbertway said:

I disagree with the fitness shout, as soon as it got back to 2-2 we looked a lot more lively and players were sprinting and working for the ball again.

 

To me it definitely looks more like a mindset or tactical thing.

Cifuentes claims it isn't tactical—ie, he reckons that he told them to attack and play on the front foot in the second half. So if it isn't fitness or tactics, that leaves only mindset. Marti comes across as a nice guy but not necessarily somebody with the authority/charisma to instill self-belief in a squad of players that has become accustomed to failure over the past few years. These collapses we're witnessing may be more a manifestation of Cifuentes' lack of leadership skills than anything else.

[Stadt]

1 minute ago, ClaphamFox said:

Cifuentes claims it isn't tactical—ie, he reckons that he told them to attack and play on the front foot in the second half. So if it isn't fitness or tactics, that leaves only mindset. Marti comes across as a nice guy but not necessarily somebody with the authority/charisma to instill self-belief in a squad of players that has become accustomed to failure over the past few years. These collapses we're witnessing may be more a manifestation of Cifuentes' lack of leadership skills than anything else.

It happens every time we're leading - the players won't want to put themselves under that pressure. The players don't make the braindead subs

[Mike Oxlong]

I only saw the highlights but it looked like Bristol were at it like rabid ferrets second half 

[ClaphamFox]

5 minutes ago, Mike Oxlong said:

I only saw the highlights but it looked like Bristol were at it like rabid ferrets second half 

They were, but that was always likely to happen after the first half. The point is that a decent side would have figured out a way to absorb the pressure while offering enough of an attacking threat on the counter to give the opposition something to think about, whereas every time we got into their half our passing/positional play was all over the place and we offered no threat whatsoever. Our players looked like they didn't believe they could hold onto the lead, and it turned out they were right.

[steveb]

15 hours ago, oxtonfox said:

Did you mean Farage or Fatawu’s recent form? 

both would be applicable the Fartage Trump arse licker or the one trick pony winger Fatawu

[Pita]

1 hour ago, Mike Oxlong said:

I only saw the highlights but it looked like Bristol were at it like rabid ferrets second half 

We were clueless second half 

[UniFox21]

2 hours ago, filbertway said:

I disagree with the fitness shout, as soon as it got back to 2-2 we looked a lot more lively and players were sprinting and working for the ball again.

 

To me it definitely looks more like a mindset or tactical thing.

Being camped in our half and unable to get on the ball was the real issue

[Mahrezisawizard]

Has Jordan James ever been subbed off for us and we’ve gone on to hold on to our lead? I think it’s happened 3/4 times now he’s gone off and we’ve conceded a late equaliser. This team is desperate for some more legs we are physically awful. 

[stox259]

They changed it at half time and it absolutely did us. They pushed up on our full backs and stepped ten yards up the pitch (hardly a tactical masterstroke) but Marti and the players just couldn't react. There was space all over the pitch in behind their full backs and not once did we look to play there. All we did was retreat, retreat, retreat and never tried to proactively change what we were doing. Typical formulaic manager who does things by his book and if that doesn't work he has nothing else. 

 

Football cannot be fully planned and you will never eliminate all the unknowns no matter how much the textbook says you can. Football will always be chaos and you have to react accordingly. Marti doesn't have the tools or knowledge to react and he certainly doesn't have the players to force his style and we come out as winners. As much as our players are poor (we do not have one genuine premier league quality player imo) Marti is the problem. 

[Spudulike]

We can talk about tactics, or lack of, but our players were either unable or unwilling to match the determination and tanacity of the Bristol City players. They were first to every lose ball and worked their socks off to create threats. Everything seemed to fall their way from the first seconds of the second half due to them forcing the play and gaining momentum. Cliche alert: they wanted it more. And we are simply don't have the strength of character to counter it.

 

Only positive is that we didn't lose, although it doesn't feel like it.

[whoareyaaa]

Soon as Vesterguard assisted there first goal I went to sleep

 

And the James sub was baffling.

 

not much else to add.

[Dan]

8 hours ago, The Fosse Way said:

TFW match report

https://thefosseway.net/2025/12/11/bristol-city-2-leicester-city-2-the-one-half-wonders/

 

We have spent so much of the last 12 years on a rollercoaster ride of highs and lows, that watching a mediocre, mid-table season unfurl in front of us is a strange experience.

 

Every game feels like a referendum, before turning out to be much less important than we think. Each week you turn towards the league table for answers and find that yes, we’re still just outside the top six.

 

More than that, each performance from this Leicester City team confirms whatever prior belief you had about them.

 

At this point, either you think there’s no point sacking yet another manager and that Marti Cifuentes is doing a reasonable job in the circumstances, or you think he has shown little to suggest he is getting the best out of this team and mid-table is an unacceptable return.

 

How wonderful then that this trip to Ashton Gate provided 45 minutes of ammunition for the first argument, followed by 45 minutes of support for the second.

 

At the interval, you could plausibly draw a line from Cifuentes’ half time changes against Sheffield United a fortnight ago to Wednesday evening and argue that Leicester City were fixed. The balance sheet in the 180 minutes since that moment showed seven goals scored to only one conceded. Seven goals is an awful lot for this Leicester team, it had taken them eight games to score as many before this flurry.

 

Along with the raw numbers, there were positive signs in the performances as well. Bristol City looked like an extension of the mini-comeback against Sheffield United and then the win over Derby. The midfield trio, shorn of Harry Winks and Boubakary Soumare’s ponderous play, was more slick and energetic. They were moving the ball quicker, getting it forward and into wide areas with intent.

 

Moving the ball faster is one of those things that is so obvious it’s hard to understand why teams struggle so much to do it. The knock-on effect of fast interchanges through midfield and more direct passing from the centre backs into the forward line is that the wingers find themselves in one-on-one situations, as opposed to being endlessly double, or even triple, marked.

 

Suddenly, Stephy Mavididi looks a far more dangerous player. He is basically good enough to be a real threat to any team if you keep allowing him to isolate defenders and drive inside at them. He’s much less effective if he’s held out wide and forced towards the byline. To maximise his strengths he has to get the ball quickly and often, ideally before the defence has had time to reset into a low block.

 

Leicester did this well in the first half, particularly for the first 20 minutes of the game. Mavididi was creating chances, fashioning opportunities for himself, and got on the end of a back post cross that he headed off the top of the crossbar. He then did Scott Twine all ends up to win the penalty that Jordan Ayew converted.

 

Along with the midfielders, Ben Nelson and Ayew himself were key parts of the first half display. The contrast between the air of calm that seems to surround Nelson, and the air of ‘inflatable flapping about in a 100mph hurricane’ that follows Faes around is something to behold. The defence looks more composed with him in it, even if it isn’t actually good.

 

He also offers glimpses of a quality range of passing, some of which went directly into Ayew and which the latter did an excellent job of coming deep to receive the ball to feet. Ayew is good at this very specific thing and not much else; if you could treat him like a table football player and affix a giant pole through his chest about 40 yards out so he didn’t have to worry about ever going forward into the opposition third, he would be brilliant.

 

Leicester were largely in control of the first half, though that had slipped away a little in the latter stages. The second goal, when it came, kind of happened out of nowhere and had nothing to do with any of the bits of football that had looked good prior to this. Abdul Fatawu got the ball on the half way line, ran all the way to the edge of the box, did two Bristol City players on the byline and squared for Bobby De Cordova Reid to score (again).

 

This was a good goal, if a woeful defensive effort from Bristol City. It also summed up the strange season Fatawu is having. He did little else all game, even his trademark wild shot from range was nowhere to be seen. Perhaps he’s frustrated or trying too hard to pull off a magic moment every time, but Leicester need him to be much more involved.

 

So there we are with the good bits. At half time, the Foxes looked pretty comfortable. Bristol City had moments before the break but they hadn’t looked anything special.

 

Within a minute of the restart this shimmering dreamworld was shattered by the reality of supporting this team. The hosts came out of the blocks like a cannon, Jannik Vestergaard tried to do too much in blocking a cross and diverted it straight to Mark Sykes, who put it past Jakub Stolarczyk.

 

Bristol City were excellent in the second half. Their intensity kept Leicester pinned back for more or less the entire rest of the game and they created enough chances to win. Stolarczyk was forced into a lot of saves, which he pulled off to varying degrees of competence.

The Robins amassed 14 shots in the second half alone. Many of these were headers, which are not always as good chances as they seem, but on at least a couple of occasions they rose unchallenged only to put the header straight at the goalkeeper. On another, Sinclair Armstrong headed a header that was probably going in anyway up and onto the woodwork, where it bounced out, ricocheted off someone else and somehow slipped wide.

 

The question from a Leicester perspective is why and how we failed to respond to this in any way. It’s one thing for the opposition to play well, it’s another thing to be completely unable to react to it. Leicester have two fast wingers, before long they had Patson Daka on as well, and yet there was nothing resembling the threat of a counter attack.

 

There was also little by way of defensive organisation. It’s perfectly reasonable to defend more when you’re ahead, the issue is that there’s no point doing that if you’re going to give up so many shots and concede loads of goals. You may as well keep trying to attack. Even feeding Ayew to fall over and win free kicks would have been a better strategy than camping back in our own box.

 

To reiterate, Bristol City played well. But this is Bristol City, 10th in the Championship. Not Arsenal or Manchester City. Not even Southampton or Sheffield United, who are either armed with parachute payments or were one of the best Championship teams not to get promoted last term. It’s implausible to argue that Leicester have to accept being outplayed by anyone and everyone. Aw shucks, what can you do. Rudkin out!

 

Perhaps the most concerning part of the second half was the way in which Cifuentes tried and failed to impact the game. He is constrained by his bench and if you add 50% of your senior midfielders to the bomb squad then you’re going to lack options. At the same time, after one minute of the second half the game had changed significantly, and his reaction was baffling in the extreme.

 

On a tactical level, the decision to replace Jordan James with Patson Daka and play De Cordova Reid in midfield after 10 minutes of being completely outplayed is one of the stranger substitutions in the annals of Leicester City history. Rarely can a change ever have been so obviously destined to be a disaster. A few minutes later, Cifuentes had to fix the inevitable gaping hole in central midfield by bringing on Bade Aluko and shifting Hamza Choudhury into the middle.

 

Once Bristol City had equalised, thanks to an absolutely dreadful defensive effort from everybody concerned, he rushed on Louis Page and the inevitable Silko Thomas for Mavididi and Fatawu. It meant that at 2-2, Leicester’s forward line was comprised of Thomas, Page, Ayew, and Daka. Like sending out Mr. Blobby to storm Helm’s Deep.

 

There is also a more strategic question, which is why his team cannot escape when they’re under pressure. For as much as there is a lack of quality, such as Daka coming on to immediately lose the ball with his first two touches, any team should be able to create the odd counter attack. Even when Andorra come to Wembley they have a couple of attacks.

 

Leicester, on the other hand, failed to put the pressure back on Bristol City at all. It became like an attack v defence training game for long stretches of time. The home team put an astonishing 35 crosses into the Leicester box. It took until the last minute for Leicester to register their first shot of the half, and that was Ayew blazing over from 35 yards.

 

Some late lipstick on the pig, thanks to Silko Thomas forcing a save from range at the death, makes the stats look better but doesn’t change the reality of how passive this team was for so long.

 

The difficulty in making any definite judgement about the manager and how good Leicester are is that there is always a counter argument. The second half here was one of the worst you’re ever likely to see, but the first half was pretty good. Some variation of that applies to the whole season.

 

If you peek behind the curtain, though, the underlying numbers remain those of a poor bottom half team. Even the good halves are not that good, and they are being overwhelmed by how bad the bad halves are. This was another game in which Leicester were comfortably beaten according to xG.

 

Cifuentes is just about keeping his head above water thanks to these occasional strong passages of play – the doomed comeback at Sheffield United, a strong start at Derby, then a good first half here. But for us to believe in the long term potential at all then they need to build on them, rather than reverting to type at the first opportunity.

 

Maybe this is one step forward, two steps back approach is how things are going to be, at least until the points deduction is confirmed. Leicester are treading water until further notice and that is good enough to hold off any argument that we deserve anything better.

We’re fine, middle-of-the-road. You win some, you lose some, you draw a lot. If you need us, we’ll be a couple of points off the playoffs.

I do enjoy these articles and always have a bit of a smile to myself that James Knight is drafted in for every bad result