Leicester find themselves in the slightly odd if not uncommon end-of-season scenario where, with league results now chiefly meaningless, the most irritating moment of their afternoon at Newcastle was not their hosts’ last-gasp winner.
The nature of the first goal Leicester conceded will be far more vexing for Brendan Rodgers because that, rather than a dramatic breakaway winner scored thanks to some brilliance from Joe Willock on the left and a lung-busting run forward from Bruno Guimaraes to be in the right place at the right time as the clock ticked past 94 minutes, has graver implications for the remaining matches that do matter.
Leicester are in mid-table and are going to remain there. They are also in the Europa Conference semi-finals. There is no doubt about which matches matter most for Leicester over the next six weeks. But they do, irritatingly, still even after this game have eight more league obligations to tick off. There are pros and cons to this situation. On a most basic level, watching and supporting a football team can often be enormously stressful. The possible joy of that stress is what makes it all worthwhile but at the same time it’s nice on a Sunny April Sunday to just be able to watch your team play knowing there is no vast significance to attach to either success or failure. Nice if you win, sure, but it won’t ruin your weekend quite as much as those big games can when you still have something to play for at one end or the other.
Newcastle were still just about in that position, and the scenes after that late, late Bruno winner told you that nobody here was yet taking survival for granted. With 37 points, they really can relax now. None of the bottom three are getting to 37, and Everton probably aren’t either given some of their remaining games are being played away from Goodison.
All eyes on the summer and whether Eddie Howe’s use of the phrase “new contract for Sean Longstaff” really is code for “Announce Mbappe”.
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