Talking points as dust settles on loss

1: Even taking into account the disruption to the preparations and the quality of the missing players, it was still a Leicester City performance that could have been much better, writes Jordan Blackwell.

Brendan Rodgers even guaranteed one. Reflecting on the 3-0 home defeat to West Ham ahead of the trip to the London Stadium, the City boss said: “Certainly we will be better than we were that day.”

In fairness, that promise was kept. City were better, but only thanks to their rally in the final half-hour. The first hour was as bad as it’s been all season.

Whether it is the most damaging defeat of the season will be dependent on the results over the next few weeks, but there is no doubt it will be remembered as the most frustrating loss of the campaign because it was clear City had not learned.

Seven months ago, Aaron Cresswell launched a ball high into the sky, Pablo Fornals broke beyond a static City defence, brought the ball down, and finished. At the time, it felt like a bizarrely amateurish goal for City to concede.

Surely it couldn’t happen again, against the same team in the same season? And then as halftime approached, a long straight ball was launched upfield. Jonny Evans did not know whether to step up or stay back, Wesley Fofana presumably assumed Jarrod Bowen was offside, and so his pursuit was laboured. Given a headstart, Bowen was not catchable, and laid the ball on a plate for Jesse Lingard.

Rodgers described the goal as “awful” afterwards, and he was not wrong. It was embarrassing and entirely preventable.

West Ham are the first team to do the double over City this season, so it’s not a case that failing to learn from previous mistakes is a theme that needs to be addressed.

But it is no less frustrating, because it was so simple to analyse. West Ham were always going to play on the counterattack after taking the lead, just as they did at the King Power, and yet City let them to do it.