Brendan Rodgers shouldn’t care where James Maddison and Youri Tielemans find their motivation if they continue to spark Leicester’s huge improvement…
The table might not show it but Everton can make a reasonable claim to be the most improved team of 2022. On Bonfire Night, however, Leicester showed themselves as the most improved side of the season so far.
Both assessments being true, it reflects the depths each side has plumbed over those periods. Everton could hardly have argued that it wouldn’t have been deserved if they had been relegated last season, while Leicester looked destined for the drop while they shambled through the opening weeks of the campaign, with Brendan Rodgers seemingly spent at the King Power.
Even amid a seven-game winless run to open the season, Leicester had their moments, albeit far too fleeting, occasionally interspersing prolonged periods of unfathomable defending, especially at set-pieces. Those problems haven’t been completely eradicated, but their moments are becoming more of a dominant theme.
In the three games that preceded this trip to Goodison Park, especially in shut-out wins over Leeds and Wolves, the Foxes have looked more like their old selves. It’s now just one defeat in five, that loss coming against a Manchester City side pushed all the way at the King Power last week.
If three and a half years of Brendan had begun to grate on Leicester’s players, it seems they’ve tuned back in. Evidence of that can be found in their defensive record. Having conceded 22 in eight games at the start of the season, now only a Kevin De Bruyne stunner has beaten Danny Ward in their last five matches.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of Wout Faes since he settled into the back four in place of Wesley Fofana. Again, at Goodison, the Belgian was excellent, pocketing Dominic Calvert-Lewin before the unfortunate Everton striker’s latest injury prompted his early departure.
Faes was excellent but not outstanding in a superb overall performance that earned a successive away wins for the first time in two years. While they remained solid at the back, the Foxes gave Everton’s defence, one of the Premier League’s most impressive units through the first 13 matches, their most torrid 90 minutes of the season so far.
It would be wrong to credit James Maddison with Leicester’s improvement because the No.10 has been hugely impressive for most of the season, even when those around him were failing to match, or even…
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