Football League World
·23 October 2023
Football League World
·23 October 2023
Leicester City have continued to take the Championship by storm following the October international break, returning to action with a 3-1 victory over Swansea City on Saturday afternoon in South Wales.
Despite falling behind in a league game for the first time since September 2nd through a Matt Grimes effort, Enzo Maresca's side showed their mental toughness and quality to turn the game on its head as Jannik Vestergaard equalised on the stroke of halftime before two goals in the second period through Abdul Fatawu and Kelechi Iheanacho secured the Foxes' eleventh win in twelve Championship outings.
As the second tier prepares itself for another three-game week, Football League World rounds up the latest news out of the King Power Stadium.
As a result of the comeback victory on Saturday, the Foxes have broken and equalled a host of league and club records, as per The Athletic.
The aforementioned 11th win from their opening 12 games broke the record for the best start since the rebranding of the EFL back in 2004, as well as equalling seven sides' second-tier tallies in the same amount of games, most recently the Fulham side of 2000/01. All seven of these sides have gone on to win the then 'Division 2' title.
Maresca's side broke further league and club history, eclipsing their own record set back in 2013/14 - winning their first five away games, and the Italian has seen this current incarnation of Foxes go one better.
The Foxes head coach also praised the mentality of his players who stuck to their initial game plan despite the setback after 20 minutes, and that those who don't play every minute continue to have an impact on the rest of the squad.
“It was not a team talk, it was just supporting each other. Most of the time, these kinds of things are from the players in the first 11. The players on the bench, they are always a little bit unhappy, sad, these things are normal. But in our case, the guys on the bench are the guys who support, and this shows the desire and our togetherness." He told Leicestershire Live.
“Then Jannik, when he scored, he didn’t celebrate, he just took the ball to start again because it showed the desire to win the game. For us, the idea is important, playing inside and outside is important, but these details are much more important.”
“I’m very happy. Even at 1-0 down, we continued in the same way. No panic. This is for us the most important thing." Maresca continued.
Naturally, comparisons are beginning to be drawn between this Leicester side and Vincent Kompany's Burnley outfit from last season, as many believe this Foxes team have what it takes to become the best in Championship history.
However, by his own admission, Maresca states there is still a lot of work to be done to prove these comparisons.
"I don’t think we are better than Burnley to be honest. Because they destroyed the Championship last year with 101 points. In this moment, we still need 70 more points to go a little bit more than them.
One sour note from the weekend's victory for the side was the injury sustained by Yunus Akgun in the latter stages, despite only coming on after 65 minutes.
Before the international break, the in-form Kasey McAteer was ruled out with a hamstring problem, and it could be a 'touch and go' situation for the man on loan from Galatasary, although Maresca anticipates nothing serious ahead of the midweek clash with Sunderland.
“It was just something, but not something important, so hopefully he’s not going to lose any games or any days. We’ll see.” he said via the Sunderland Echo.