Victory at Leeds would be defining performance of a splendid season
FOXES AIM TO END HOSTS’ UNBEATEN HOME RUN
IT’S first versus second and there’s only a quarter of the season remaining. Tomorrow night’s encounter feels like a huge game for Leicester City and Leeds United.
But right now, you won’t find either of the clubs’ managers saying so.
Enzo Maresca said matter-offactly that no matter the result at Elland Road, City’s destiny won’t be determined on the night.
Daniel Farke believes that even in the event of a defeat to Leeds, City are definitely going up anyway.
For City, the jeopardy of the fixture is being removed.
That perhaps helps their players to leave the emotion out of the game, allowing them to focus more intensely on the game plan.
For supporters, it perhaps calms the nerves a little.
But don’t be fooled, there is plenty riding on this one.
From a promotion perspective, a win would be huge.
At the very least, City would then have an 11-point cushion to third place, potentially 12 if either Ipswich or Southampton slip up on Saturday.
A 12-point gap with 12 matches remaining would be exciting.
It’s not an insurmountable amount, but it would feel, at that point, that City are in touching distance.
They would then have to slip up at least four times to be knocked out of the top two, and with the confidence boost that comes from beating one of their closest rivals, and given the way they have brushed aside so many of the Championship’s weaker teams this campaign, it would be hard to envisage that.
More than that, it does feel like City still have a point to prove in the very biggest games.
That’s not to devalue the results they have earned.
Securing promotion and winning titles requires consistency and City’s record against bottom-half sides is incredibly impressive.
It’s what has put them in the position they are in.
But it would be a huge boost to the belief in the team if they were able to get the better of one of their rivals.
In a mini-league made up solely of matches between the top six, City would sit fifth at the moment, albeit with fewer games played.
Against their automatic promotion rivals, they swatted aside Southampton in a period where the Saints were battling to get to grips with Russell Martin’s tactics, but they’ve since been beaten by Leeds and drawn twice with Ipswich.
That Leeds loss still rankles a little. It wasn’t like last week’s defeat to Middlesbrough, where missed chances were as much to blame as any kind of underperformance. Leeds were simply the better team.
As Farke said yesterday: “We won the last game, we returned with a clean sheet and we were quite dominant, at least in several periods of the game, with our pressing and we looked rock solid when we had to defend. I’d like to repeat this.”
It would be unfair to get too hung up on just one game, but it would be nice to see a really strong performance against Leeds in particular.
Their fast-paced style feels like Kryptonite for a team built on Maresca’s principles.
So it would be very satisfying to get the better of them, particularly when they’ve not lost at home all season.
Add all that together and if City play well and deservedly win, they will have themselves the defining performance and result of their campaign.
That should be the incentive and one that overrides the managers’ bids to lower the stakes.