Leicester earn draw at Leeds as Barnes quickly cancels out Raphinha’s opener
Any Manchester United fans who would rather like to see Brendan Rodgers replace Ole Gunnar Solskjaer should be careful what they wish for.
Leicester’s manager has many strong points but right now he does not necessarily seem the answer to Old Trafford’s defensive woes.
For a 10th successive Premier League game Rodgers’ side failed to keep a clean sheet and this defensive untidiness explains why a team once again harbouring European ambitions are marooned in mid-table.
It could easily have been worse for Leicester but, in Patrick Bamford’s continued absence with an ankle injury, Leeds struggle horribly to score from open play and Marcelo Bielsa’s side were duly again rueing the litany of missed chances which have left them too close to the bottom three for comfort.
“We created double the amount of chances Leicester had,” Bielsa said. “We deserved to win but did not manage to obtain it.”
Leeds hurtled out of the blocks, subjecting Leicester to a high-intensity attacking blizzard and forcing Kasper
Schmeichel to show off razor sharp reflexes to tip Jack Harrison’s deflected, awkwardly looping, right-foot shot to safety.
Leicester’s manager looked relieved when no penalty was awarded after Ricardo Pereira sent Raphinha tumbling in the box. Bielsa’s Brazilian rightwinger looked as if he belonged in a more exalted stratosphere to almost everyone else and goodness knows where Leeds would be without his game changing talents.
Accordingly it felt entirely appropriate that Raphinha opened the scoring courtesy of a deceptively curving, left-footed, free-kick awarded after one of his characteristic advances was rudely interrupted by Boubakary Soumaré. As Elland Road erupted in celebration it seemed Leeds were back to their thrilling, fluent best.
Yet, although Pascal Struijk was impressing in an unfamiliar left-back role in a revamped home back four and Leicester were being forced into far too many errors by this rather glorious, if temporary, reversion to high tempo Bielsaball, the visitors retained a certain counter-attacking menace.
Sure enough Leicester equalised virtually straight from the restart when Jonny Evans lifted a long ball forward for Soumaré to flick on in Harvey Barnes’s direction. Capitalising on a concentration lapse as Bielsa’s players allowed themselves to be distracted by the crowd’s euphoria, Barnes delighted in dodging the otherwise wonderfully assured Diego Llorente – who barely permitted Jamie Vardy a kick – before curling a superlative angled shot beyond Illan Meslier.
Annoyed at this latest example of their penchant for self destruction, Leeds responded with considerable ferocity but, by now, Leicester had remembered a few street-wise habits and, often thanks to a minor foul here and there, succeeded in slowing things down.
Still dominant, Leeds created a stream of half chances but, without Bamford around to polish them off, Leicester always retained hope. Admittedly Daniel James’s change of pace sporadically unsettled Rodgers’s defence but Bielsa’s lone striker could not disguise the reality that he was a winger deployed out of position.
It might have helped the home cause had Harrison not missed a sitter from point-blank range after Kalvin
Phillips nodded on a corner.
With Rodrigo combining intelligently with Raphinha – even if the deep lying Spain forward could do with scoring a goal or two – and the recalled Adam Forshaw more than holding his own in central midfield, it was easy to appreciate Bielsa’s mounting frustration.
Possession, though, can sometimes be overrated and, when Ademola Lookman tapped the ball home following Vardy’s flick, Leicester looked to have burgled a win before seeing the goal disallowed for a marginal offside by a VAR check.
“It’s tough to take,” Rodgers said. “But if you can’t win you make sure you don’t lose and we showed courage. The guys have given me everything; I’m proud of my team. It’s a valuable point.”