Leicester City Fan View: Puel has made a lot of progress

A 0-0 draw at Stamford Bridge against the current Champions is impressive. It doesn’t reflect quite how well Leicester City performed though. The Foxes didn’t look like the away side. It was a high level, attacking with intent performance from the get-go. Claude Puel’s plan has become clearer with each week, it’s just taken a little time to put in place. What he’s achieved in his three months so far, though, is nothing short of excellent.

Foxes haven’t always been able to execute plan A, or B against the top six

Our record away from home leaves a lot to be desired. Look at it when those games are visiting the top six and it looks worse again. While we’ve produced some thrilling performances and excellent results against the big clubs at home, we’ve usually struggled in the reverse fixtures. When we can’t enforce plan A, getting Jamie Vardy in and behind the defense or finding Riyad Mahrez and letting him shine, we haven’t often had an alternative approach either.

AS IT HAPPENED: Chelsea v Leicester

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Perhaps our approach stunned Chelsea? We didn’t let them settle into the game. Our 58% possession is interesting. It’s not something we associate with this current Leicester side. We looked confident though, fearless in the approach. What Puel achieved is exactly what he promised. We didn’t go to Chelsea to roll over or compromise our approach. It was a hard working display. We won virtually every 50/50 ball, desire there from every player.

Crucially, Puel found a way for us to keep Vardy and Mahrez involved. Neither were starved of the ball or service. For Vardy, he was a nuisance all afternoon, helped by the efforts of Shinji Okazaki who had our best chance at goal. Mahrez was… well, his usual dazzling self. He looks hungry, happy and playing his best football since our title-winning season. It’s crazy to consider we’ve enjoyed his skills for four years now, but I’ll never be bored of it.

Wilfred Ndidi running the show

The comparison is inevitable. N’Golo Kante, so loved at Leicester, came up against Wilfred Ndidi, our eventual replacement for the departed Kante. It’s an unfair comparison given the two players’ differences, but it made for an interesting match-up. Ndidi arguably came out the victor too.

Ndidi gave us everything yesterday. An attacking outlet, a ball-winning display and plenty of defensive contributions. He was unlucky not to get on the score-sheet with a great header. Consider that the midfielder is still just 21. His figures at Chelsea include 86% pass accuracy, another four interceptions to add to his tally for the season and, importantly, he won five tackles, too. Despite this, he barely got a mention for his role or praise for it.

Having started every league game this season, he’s our consistency. He’s been asked to partner a number of rotating players in the middle and has stepped up on virtually every occasion. We’ve seen improvements in his second season, too, better at reading the game and better at knowing when to dispatch the ball and help us get forward. Mahrez isn’t the only midfielder we need to worry about hanging on to if Ndidi keeps on getting better.

Few comebacks more pleasing than Matty James’s

It’s tough not to have a heart in mouth moment every time Matty James is tackled or fouled and stays down. Having finally got his fitness back, overcome so many setbacks and looking as good as he did in the 2014-15 season, it would be heartbreaking to lose him again to injury. So, it’s a big relief to know his substitution yesterday was more precautionary. There are few comebacks so pleasing to see than James’s revival. Alongside Wilfred Ndidi, he also impressed.

The sheer work-rate the midfielder displayed was fantastic. Particularly with the Foxes reduced to 10 men, he covered every inch of grass to support his colleagues, a trait demonstrated by the whole side at Chelsea.

With James back and looking strong, it presents that pleasant sort of headache for Claude Puel. While Ndidi has started every Premier League game and appears to be the perfect partner for all our midfielders, the competition for who’ll play on a weekly basis is strong. Vicente Iborra is back from a brief hamstring problem and has looked generally terrific alongside Ndidi, too. James’s chance to impress came at a good time with Iborra out for a game or two and Adrien Silva getting up to speed.

Puel has to keep this level of performance up

Puel considered the draw ‘two points dropped’ which tells you his mindset. He’ll be delighted that his side followed the game plan and made it look so easy against such a good side. It was a performance only lacking a goal. Of course, our chance to win was complicated with Ben Chilwell’s second yellow card. That was a shame as, prior to that, we still looked like we had more to give in the second half.

Clean sheets have been hard to come by of late. Our defending has required improvement and we’ve also suffered with some injuries. You might have called the back-four against Chelsea another makeshift back-line: Harry Maguire our most experienced, partnered by Aleksandar Dragovic, with Ben Chilwell and Daniel Amartey as the full-backs. It worked though. Dragovic quietly went about impressing next to Maguire again. The two have the potential for a good partnership. Kasper Schmeichel wasn’t as busy as some headlines would have you believe, but dealt very well with what was asked of him.

If Puel can get the side to repeat the sheer determination, intensity and passing we saw, a team is going to concede three or four to us. His vision is paying off and although this latest point still leaves us in eighth, it’s a sign of where we might end up.