Yahoo News Liverpool promise, five-star reply to turmoil – the 10 games that won Leicester City the title
Winning a title requires a level of consistency across nine months. Playing well in fits and starts is not the stuff of champions.
However, there have been games and events across the season that have had a greater-than-average impact on Leicester City’s promotion and have been significant in propelling them to the top of the standings. Here’s our rundown of the 10 key moments from the campaign.
Maresca’s idea on display against Liverpool
For the first of these key moments, we rewind all the way to last July. A 4-0 pre-season defeat to Liverpool sounds like it could do more bad than good, knocking a team’s confidence just a week before the season begins.
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However, the first 20 minutes were so good that it did wonders for the belief in the idea. City knocked the ball around excellently, progressing through Liverpool’s press with confidence and quality, leading to chances.
Liverpool sharpened up after that and were dominant, but City hung on to the positives from those first 20 minutes. For the players, it showed that the gameplan worked, even against the best opposition. For Enzo Maresca, it showed that his players were good enough and intelligent enough to adapt to his style.
Late derby-day victory to open the season
A return to the Championship set up a first meeting in 11 years with City’s neighbours down the M69. Coventry visiting the King Power Stadium was always going to be a big occasion, but as Maresca’s first competitive game in charge, and the Sky Blues’ first game since losing the play-off final, there was a lot riding on it.
Thankfully for City, they secured the three points. By doing so in dramatic circumstances, with Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall scoring a late double to turn the game around, they thrilled their supporters. But it was also a match that taught City plenty about themselves.
It no doubt helped Dewsbury-Hall’s confidence in a new attacking role, and he thrived throughout the season. Meanwhile, City proved to themselves they could score late winners, a trend they continued for the first few months, including against Cardiff and Rotherham later in August.
But importantly, Coventry’s attack was good enough to expose where City were weak. The Sky Blues had 20 shots and City needed Mads Hermansen to make a couple of fine saves on his debut to stop the visitors scoring more. Afterwards, Maresca made a tweak to his defensive set-up when City were in possession, which limited counter-attacks against them for the remainder of the season. City did not concede 20 shots in a league game for the rest of the campaign.
Big win at Southampton in battle of possession sides
The first match after the September international break saw City take on one of their expected promotion rivals for the first time. It was set up to be an intriguing battle, with Russell Martin bringing a similar brand of possession football to the south coast.
But while it was the Saints who dominated the ball, it was City who did much more with it. City looked a slicker, more effective side than Southampton and scored some terrific goals, particularly the second for Kasey McAteer and the third for Wilfred Ndidi.
Then, in a fast break in the second half, Stephy Mavididi netted for a handsome 4-1 scoreline. Maresca may not have liked his team playing on the counter, but here they showed they could do it and still be the better team. The confidence from the win also kicked off a nine-match winning run to establish Maresca’s men as the front-runners.
City move up a gear to win from behind in Wales
In the seventh game of that winning streak, at Swansea, City fell behind for the first time since their loss to Hull in early September. But they did not let it affect them. There was no panic. Instead, they played their way but with an even greater tempo, creating a glut of chances before they got back on level terms, and then securing the win in the second half.
Speaking a couple of months ago, Dewsbury-Hall picked it out as the game where everything clicked. He said: “They scored early on, but we didn’t change the way we played and won 3-1. We played some very good football and even had opposition players saying to us, ‘You’re one of the best sides we’ve played at this level.’
“One: fair play, I respect somebody admitting that. And two: it shows that what we’re doing is working. I enjoy it. You’re free, you’re playing great football, you’re creating chances, and for me it’s the best way to play.”
Five-star display at Stoke after week of turmoil
In the space of a few days in the winter, Dewsbury-Hall was targeted for a transfer by Brighton, Maresca threatened to walk out of the club over grumbles from the stands, and the transfer for Stefano Sensi broke down over financial fair play concerns. City finished the January window one midfielder lighter after Cesare Casadei was recalled by Chelsea, and with Wilfred Ndidi injured.
The combination of those events could have affected the mood and the quality of the performances at City, but in their first outing of February, they stuck five past Stoke in their biggest win of the season. It put all of those previous concerns behind them. City’s troubles did start later in February, but it could have been a lot worse.
City prove their Premier League credentials at Bournemouth
A trip to the south coast in late February did not have an impact on City’s Championship title campaign, but it a boost to the belief in the group and could be the most important result of the season going forward. That's because it showed they are more than a match for the Premier League's mid-table sides.
Because of the changes made by both teams, Maresca was keen to downplay the significance of the 1-0 extra-time win. But City still played their way, and it saw them hold their own against one of the Premier League’s form sides at the time. And the Cherries still had their first-choice defence on the pitch. It’s a game worth remembering as City start to prepare for their return to the big time.
City beat Norwich with the pressure on
City enjoyed a six-month run at the top of the table from September to March, but when they lost at Bristol City on Good Friday, they found themselves third. The 14-point advantage inside the top two had disappeared in six weeks.
Thanks to their game in hand, they still had control of their own fate. But they went into their Easter Monday fixture against Norwich needing to win to keep it that way. And at the time, the Canaries were one of the form teams in the division.
However, City produced one of their best performances of the campaign. They didn’t lose heart when they went a goal behind and continued to dominate, fighting back. When Jamie Vardy sealed the win late on, it blew the roof off the King Power Stadium, with Stephy Mavididi and Abdul Fatawu mobbing Maresca as he ran down the touchline.
Before that game, City’s away record had been better than their form at home. But that victory not only improved the atmosphere for the remainder of the season, but kickstarted a run of four straight wins at the King Power.
Talks clear heads before Choudhury heroics
But City’s away form did not recover and back-to-back losses on the road at Millwall and Plymouth took anger and anxiety in the stands to new levels. Maresca and the players were blowing it.
The squad knew something was up and it was time to clear it out of their system. They had a long meeting after the Plymouth loss with Maresca, and then had a players-only chat at training a few days later, where everybody and anybody was encouraged to come forward and give their thoughts on where it was going wrong.
It was mutually decided that City, after a knock to their confidence caused by defeats, were beginning to be more cautious in possession and not take calculated risks in the hope of breaking down the opposition. Those words helped and City scored twice against West Brom in their next game.
However, they were open at the back and allowed the Baggies to create a hatful of chances. Standing in the way was Hamza Choudhury, whose trio of heroic goal-line blocks earned City three points.
City thrash Southampton in season’s best display
Slip-ups elsewhere meant City were on top even before they played their game in hand. This was the time to hammer home their advantage. In a big match against quality opponents, they delivered.
In particular, Fatawu did. The winger was a whirlwind ripping through the Saints to score three goals and set up another in the best individual performance of the campaign. But City didn’t let the visitors have a sniff either, and Hermansen didn’t have a single save to make.
It was a result that put City on the brink of promotion, and gave them the confidence they needed to go and earn it. In the end, Leeds (and QPR) did the job for them.
No hangover as City run riot in away day for the ages
The last time City won the Championship, the first game after their promotion was a 4-1 home loss to Brighton. From the stands, it felt like some of the players were nursing sore heads when they stepped out onto the pitch.
There was no such repeat at Preston. City had celebrated their promotion hard, with a party at Maresca’s on Friday night and beers at Seagrave on Saturday morning. But there were only two chances to win the title and they got themselves in shape to claim the trophy as soon as they could.
Cue an utterly dominant 3-0 win at Deepdale to the delight of the 5,700 City fans who had travelled. In the stands, there was 90 minutes of noise, celebration, nostalgic chants, inflatables and flares, and then another hour of bouncing around after the final whistle, this time with the players joining in. It won’t be an evening anybody forgets in a hurry.
