Trouble with defenders has been the defining theme of the season so far for Leicester but in the run-up to the visit of West Ham, Brendan Rodgers was offered a kind of comfort – in the form of a reminder that things could, in theory, have been worse. All of the many players he has had to use in defence have made costly mistakes in this campaign, sometimes several times in the same match. But none have featured in home movies involving a tormented cat. So there’s that.
Much of Leicester’s chronic instability can be traced back to the injury suffered in pre-season by Wesley Fofana, the precocious Frenchman who quickly became fundamental to Leicester after joining from Saint-Étienne as a 19-year-old in 2020. Fofana continues to make his way back from the leg break inflicted in an August friendly and may return to full training this month. Whenever he is fit enough to regain his place, he will be welcomed back warmly.
There was no such welcome on Sunday for West Ham’s Kurt Zouma, just boos when the stadium announcer read out his name. Another player to arrive in English football from Saint-Étienne as a 19-year-old, the Frenchman has played in the Premier League for four clubs over the past eight years and generally been regarded as a decent, dependable centre-half, apt to head a goal from a set-piece but otherwise unlikely to inflame passions. And then came that outrageous, ludicrous, sad video. Suddenly Zouma is a public enemy, an ex-cat owner and embarrassment to his club.
West Ham fined him but chose not to drop him. On Friday David Moyes appealed for the player to be shown “a little bit of forgiveness” and to be allowed to learn and atone. Which is convenient for the club who have invested a lot of money and hope in the player. But it is also a fair plea, especially in an age when justified condemnation can quickly acquire a metaphorical, hypocritical bloodlust. Some denouncers of human folly or wickedness have at least one trait in common with the hunters on MyOutdoorTV, the subscription channel run by a company owned by Arsenal’s Stan Kroenke.
It turned out that West Ham did not get to deploy Zouma at Leicester because the player, apparently, felt unwell during the warmup and had to pull out of the match. One hopes he recovers.
Issa Diop stepped into the visitors’ defence in place of Zouma. It took him less than 10 minutes to make his mark and, in the process, he tore a now-familiar look of panic across the faces of Leicester’s defenders.
Diop’s long straight pass from the back exposed the looseness and slowness of the home defence. Jarrod Bowen peeled off James Justin and raced into the space behind Caglar Soyuncu and Daniel Amartey before lashing a crisp left-foot finish past Kasper Schmeichel. West Ham have been frustrated in recent weeks by teams who sit deep and deny them such space but Leicester seldom play that way, especially at home, and their offside trap was faulty.
Leicester’s grim luck with injuries continued on the half- hour when Justin, only recently back from 11 months out with knee damage, was forced off.
Rather than wallow in their misfortune, Leicester kept trying to pick their way through the West Ham defence. They were not making many inroads until Aaron Cresswell failed to use his head and gave them a hand. Youri Tielemans dispatched the penalty perfectly.
Leicester played from there like a team reprieved. Soon they splayed the visiting defence regularly. Harvey Barnes caused Vladimir Coufal so much pain that Moyes decided the merciful thing to do was replace him with a different right-back. Ryan Fredericks coped better.
On the left Cresswell was at times overwhelmed. When Barnes duped Coufal on the hour and chipped a cross to the back post, Ricardo Pereira hurled himself in front of Cresswell to head his first league goal since rupturing a cruciate ligament two years ago. It was a moment of personal triumph for the Portuguese as well as a kind of collective redemption for Leicester’s defenders, who had tightened up since that inauspicious start. It seemed for a while that it would also be the winning goal.
But West Ham are chasing Champions League qualification and Leicester’s defensive record incites opponents. They have conceded more goals from set pieces than any other Premier League team this season so, when Bowen swung in a corner in stoppage time, there was no surprise to see Diop’s central defensive partner, Craig Dawson, leaping above Amartey to send the ball into the net. The fact that it did not come off his head as he intended, but off the top of his arm, added a touch of bad luck that made the goal all the more typical of Leicester’s season.
