Crisis? What crisis? Into the top half of the Premier League and the quarter-finals of European competition, important players coming back from injury to enable rotation, Leicester City set up a winning platform thanks to a couple of memorable early goals from Timothy Castagne and James Maddison that enabled them to withstand a Brentford rally that ended with Yoane Wissa’s late strike. Leicester even came up with a ploy to counter their opponents’ set‑piece threat, so no wonder Brendan Rodgers was smiling in the spring sunshine at the final whistle.
Brentford seemed to lack belief in the first half as they attempted to cope without Christian Eriksen, their creative catalyst in the successive victories over Norwich and Burnley that earned them an eight-point buffer from the relegation zone. The Denmark player was missing through Covid-19 but it is thought he will join up with his compatriots, for games against Serbia and the Netherlands.
“Of course he’s a top player and I’d have liked him out on the pitch,” Thomas Frank, the Brentford manager, said. “But I don’t think even he could have stopped the two goals going into the top corner.”
Leicester’s goals came from almost exactly the same spot but from vastly contrasting sources. Castagne produced such a brilliant right‑foot shot from just outside the left corner of the penalty area, after receiving Harvey Barnes’s short pass, for only his third goal since joining from Atalanta in September 2020, that he ran away reaching his hands to his head, as if in disbelief. On his first start of the year, this was some way to mark his return after a thigh injury. “I think that surprised everyone,” Rodgers quipped, “even himself.”
That shot swerved powerfully into the far top corner in the 20th minute, and 13 minutes later David Raya, the Brentford goalkeeper, was picking the ball out of the other corner. Maddison picked himself up, having been fouled by Mathias Jensen, and bent his shot into the near top corner, for his 13th goal of the season in all competitions. “You virtually expect James to score from that position, and that says everything,” Rodgers said. “He has tremendous quality in that position.”
Both goalscorers were fresh selections as Rodgers was able to make four changes to the team that returned triumphant from Rennes after reaching the last eight of the Europa Conference League where they face PSV Eindhoven next month.
In this match, set pieces had always looked likely to be an intriguing, potentially decisive factor, albeit more for the hosts. No team has had more trouble in defending them than Leicester, who have conceded a divisional-high 20 goals from restarts, while Brentford had scored 50% of their 32 Premier League goals from this source.
So when the visiting team had their first corner midway through the first half, three Leicester forwards promptly ran up to the halfway line, leaving Thomas Frank with a dilemma: to stick, with two defenders back, or twist, and bring sufficient cover back. The Brentford manager went with the latter, albeit with only three defenders, rather than with one man spare. The corner came to nothing anyway, and Leicester could feel vindicated. “It’s a cat and mouse game,” Frank said. “We didn’t expect them to put three up but we go man for man, to maximise our threat [in the attacking area].”
Leicester repeated the trick in the second half, when Brentford were starting to work a way back into the game in open play. Christian Nørgaard, Vitaly Janelt and Rico Henry came back to mark Maddison, Kelechi Iheanacho and Barnes. From Jensen’s corner into a thinned-out crowd, Ethan Pinnock just got the better of Caglar Soyuncu but headed wide.
Rodgers, who at times this season has seemed powerless to get his team defending set plays better, said this was a bespoke ploy for Brentford rather than a regular plan. “We always look to see where we can thwart teams,” he said.
Midway through the second half, after Iheanacho ran clear on to James Justin’s lofted pass to dink his shot over Raya but against the outside of the post, Brentford sensed a switch in momentum. Kasper Schmeichel had to make two brilliant saves: first from Pontus Jansson’s header, following Kristoffer Ajer’s right-wing centre; then from Bryan Mbeumo’s effort after Ivan Toney’s centre from the same area.
Rodgers reacted, switching Justin to left-back, where Castagne was feeling the pace, and reintroducing Jonny Evans alongside Soyuncu, with Daniel Amartey pushing out to right-back. What a luxury for Rodgers, to have such options returning.
“It will galvanise the group,” the manager, who fears Wilfred Ndidi may be out for the season with a knee injury, said. “It gives us an energy and a freshness. I’m very optimistic we can finish the season strongly with players coming back.”
