Foxes Hope To Avoid November Chill

As if from nowhere, the first bites of winter have been felt this week. Gold and red leaves blanket the pavements, and the trees stand naked. The leftovers of storm Abigail and ex-hurricane Kate have well and truly shifted the feeling of the season from autumn to winter, though it’s not officially here yet, but it’s only a matter of time before the mornings are frosted and ice greets us. Temperatures look set to drop as Leicester head up North at the end of the week.

For Leicester City, this time last year was a miserable one. It came off the back of a tough October where the Foxes registered just one point at the start of the month against fellow promoted side, Burnley. As the month drew to a close, what had been a fairly positive start to the season had quickly transformed into a relegation battle. Memories of beating Manchester United in September felt like a long time ago.

November didn’t improve our fortunes in the slightest. I ran out of words that described my frustration and the team failed to register more than a point for the second month in a row. By the time December came around Leicester had slipped all the way to the bottom of the table. Perhaps more worryingly, in two months we only scored in two out of seven games and failed to keep more than one clean sheet. Yes, we were ultimately always going to be be thrust into a relegation battle, but to go over eight weeks without seeing your team win is a tough introduction to the changing seasons.

Writing this almost a year on is strange because this season we couldn’t be much further away from that if we tried. Midway through November, and factoring in the two week intentional period we’re in that’s meant we’ve only played one game, the Foxes have already banked three points for the month. Crucially, at the risk of jinxing us, we haven’t failed to score in a league match this season.

This time last year an international break was welcome relief. A chance to go back to the drawing board for Nigel Pearson and his staff and for some players, an escape for a week or two. The approach this time around is much different. The break this time is actually frustrating, a disruption in the flow and momentum that we’ve been building on and Ranieri loses precious time with his whole squad as half of them dispersed around the globe. The thought at the back of any club fan’s mind is always in hoping that your international players come home uninjured and not too demoralised should they have lost. With a few games left to go, we’re still waiting to see if we can register a clean bill of health for the upcoming away game at Newcastle.

I was looking back through photos and thoughts from this period last season and it’s clear that the entire mindset has changed. There was something I’d said after the 2-0 away defeat to Southampton; it felt that even if we’d played for another half, I genuinely could not see where or how we were going to score. A stark contrast to how I feel watching a game now. It’s in the players’ eyes as well. They look confident in their abilities and that the ball will go into the back of the net one way or another. So far this season we’ve made ourselves the comeback kings, going behind certainly doesn’t seem to worry or concern both manager or players. There were times last season, particularly during our long October to November points drought where heads dropped and going one goal behind ensured we would come out of the game with nothing.

Twelve months ago, conceding was a major concern and the back line was shuffled a lot in an effort to try and contain the issue and to figure out what our best back four (or three or five) actually was. Yes, we could still do with tightening the lines now, and a few more clean sheets wouldn’t go amiss, but we’ve not yet let it cost us particularly. Some of this goes down to Claudio Ranieri and his faith in the team that he plays. He’s only tinkered when and where necessary. The Foxes are ranked second in terms of the fewest players used this season, much to the displeasure of the media who will soon need a new nickname for Ranieri.

While the club itself has come a long way in a year, there’s one player in particular I wanted to highlight for his change in fortune as well. Captain, Wes Morgan. I tried to be one of the more patient fans last season early on when he looked out of his comfort zone and clumsy, but even I began to lose my patience by November. A shadow of the towering centre-back and commanding captain we’d come to love, I started to wonder if this next step up was one too far. Being proven wrong by him was one of the great moments of last season.

I’ve written about the influence Robert Huth had on this change in Wes Morgan but a lot of it also comes down to him finding his feet. He’s not the first to take more than a few games to adjust from Championship requirements to the Premier League. The pace, the style and most importantly, the calibre of the strikers is much better. While Morgan looked back to the defender we knew and adored, happily this season he looks even better.

Morgan came into this season straight off the back of a successful Gold Cup campaign with Jamaica. His summer break may have been short but he looks fitter and more muscular than ever and has so far been a wall for us. The team in general are thriving under Claudio Ranieri’s management and Morgan seems to be loving life at Leicester still. He’s more vocal again than a lot of last season and has not looked out of his depth yet.

While he and the back-line have worked hard on improving how many goals we’re conceding, and trying to up the clean sheets, the midfield is worth a mention too. Part of why us conceding was such a worry was because we simply weren’t scoring enough early on in the season. The strikers looked isolated for vast majorities of the game. If Jamie Vardy’s success has taken you by surprise this season, factor in that he too was adjusting to Premier League life, along with the majority of our players who had next to no experience. Every player adapts differently and one who certainly hasn’t struggled so far is N’Golo Kante.

It’s unlikely that many Foxes fans had great knowledge of the young Frenchman but he was highly rated by those in the know. One thing that was pleasing about Claudio Ranieri was that while he signed some of his own players, he didn’t rush to integrate them into the team, nor was he too hasty in replacing those who contributed to our escape last season. When he did gradually introduce Kante though, we were impressed. He’s a player who has embraced everything about the Premier League quickly and you wouldn’t guess he’s not played in it before based on his performances. He’s different to most of the other central midfielders and was something we didn’t have last season. He’s smaller than any of the others, but quicker with it. He seems to read the game well and much like Jamie Vardy, no ball is a lost cause. The partnership he’s built up with Danny Drinkwater, that I touched on in my piece last week, has allowed Drinkwater to become more attacking.

Kante’s not afraid to get stuck in either, his tackles largely aren’t reckless either. While many saw replacing Esteban Cambiasso as the crucial signing heading into this season, we’ve been able to let the existing players step up, brought in Gökhan Inler for the experience side of things, and been able to benefit by a different kind of player in Kante. The midfield looks stronger for it and much more capable in assisting our forwards. While I don’t expect that we’ll be able to score in every game this season, I don’t believe we’ll be worrying about a goal drought similar to last year.

Leicester fans will no doubt be raring to see their team back in action this weekend away at Newcastle. Many of us have been underwhelmed by this international break what with the injury to Jamie Vardy scuppered his chances of cementing a place for England and the team’s subsequent performance and team selection. Hopefully Vardy will be fit and able to return to our starting eleven in the hunt to keep his run and our run going.

With only two games before it’s officially December, this season it’s impossible for Leicester to drop into the bottom half of the table by then, let alone occupy bottom place. If we could take maximum points from the next two games, a big ask given the fixtures, we’d be on thirty-one points. Forty is the magic number to avoid relegation if history is repeated.