Wolves 3-0 Leicester: Three Foxes Talking Points | OneFootball

Ruud van Nistelrooy made one change from the team that lost narrowly to Liverpool last weekend, Facundo Buonanotte coming in for the injured Stephy Mavididi. The Leicester boss is, surprisingly, unwilling to shake things up in preparation for next year’s Championship campaign. As it is, there could be as many as five or six members of the team that took the field against Wolves that are no longer with the club next season. Why not, then, focus on those players who are definitely going to be at the King Power in the medium term? It is difficult for the manager, of course, not least because he does not know who the, potentially, large number of new arrivals will be and he can’t call upon the on-loan players – Will Alves and Ben Nelson – who are likely to feature next year. But, still, the Dutchman can’t be accused of having a sense of adventure.

Passive

A powerful and well organised Wolves side strolled to an easy victory, their sixth successive win, over a passive Leicester side who have shown themselves unable to compete at the top level. Toothless up front and overpowered in midfield the Foxes gave far too much space to their opponents, none more so than Matheus Cunha who strolled through on the half-hour mark to give the home side the lead.

Unhappy with the first half performance, van Nistelrooy made three changes at half time replacing Buonanotte, Boubakary Soumare and Ricardo Pereira with Oliver Skipp, Kasey McAteer and James Justin. It made little difference. On the hour mark, Jorgen Strand Larsen ran on to a pass by Cunha, again in acres of space, to score the second. Leicester, against the run of play, had a chance to halve the deficit when Jamie Vardy was fouled by the Wolves keeper but the Foxes’ number nine, to cap a woeful afternoon, saw his under-hit penalty saved. Rodrigo Gomes capped off a comprehensive win at the end.

If the Leicester board’s decision on van Nistelrooy’s future is dependent on the team’s performances in the last few games of the season then surely the Dutchman has to be relieved of his duties. This was simply not good enough. The lack of quality can be accepted, to an extent, but not the lack of fight we saw here.

Vardy’s target

Jamie Vardy’s decision to bring to an end his Leicester career at the end of the season has made these final few matches of the campaign more interesting than they might otherwise have been. Can the Leicester striker achieve the double target of 500 games and 200 goals?

Barring injury, the appearance target should be in range. Taking the field against Wolves marked 497 games and so Jamie should reach 500 by the last home game of the season against Ipswich. This won’t be enough to leapfrog him into second place in the all-time top appearances chart, a place occupied by Adam Black who made 557 appearances for Leicester in the 1920s and 1930s. Vardy is even further behind central defender Graham Cross who played a staggering 600 times for the Foxes in the 1960s and 1970s.

In terms of goals, the Foxes’ number nine’s failure to score against Wolves means that he will need to hit the target twice in the last four games of the season to reach his double century. This would still put him a distant third behind the two Arthurs, Chandler and Rowley, who scored 273 and 265 goals for Leicester respectively. Their goal per-game ratio (0.6 and 0.8) is also better than Vardy’s which stands at about 0.4 goals per game.

Don’t get me wrong, though. Vardy’s place towards the top of both the appearance and goal scoring charts makes him a true great. It has been a privilege to watch him play.