The more Leicester City win, the more adamant Enzo Maresca becomes that they will lose. As City keep rising, their manager tries harder to pull them down to earth. They’re now top of the table and the only club in the EFL with a 100 per cent record.
“Straight back up, straight back up, Leicester City!” chant the supporters, riding the high of the late winners. They won’t find Maresca joining in.
“To be honest, there are 42 games left,” he said. “We are going to lose games. We need to be mentally strong. For sure we are going to lose games. In this moment, I don’t care (about being top). The season is so long.
“It’s important that the fans are close to the team. They can sing anything they want. But as a team, we cannot think that this will be easy. Absolutely not. It will be complicated.”
Statistically, there is a good reason to not getting carried away with four wins from four. The last two teams to do it were Reading and Bristol City in 2020. Reading finished seventh, and so didn’t make the play-offs. Bristol City finished 19th, three places above relegation.
But watching City, it’s hard not to feel they have found a magic formula. Each of their four matches has so far followed a very similar pattern: play pretty well in the first half, with Maresca’s gameplan on show; switch off for half-an-hour after half-time and concede chances; come on strong in the final 20 minutes and grab a late winner.
On the balance of chances, it doesn’t seem sustainable. Take off the blue-tinted glasses, and it feels like there’s going to be a game where City will concede two goals after the interval, or they’ll be thwarted by a late wonder-save.
But then again, four matches is a fair amount of evidence. For how shoddy City were at the start of the second period at Rotherham, there were not too many chances given up besides Fred Onyedinma’s equaliser. And it’s still clear City are tiring out their opponents, allowing them to find bigger gaps to exploit late on.
That is the biggest positive of the first month under Maresca. It’s not only the case that City are fit enough to cause problems late on, but that they are patient and calm enough too. In the whole of last season, City scored four goals after the 80th minute, the fewest in the Premier League. They’ve already got three in the Championship.
No club can match them. Their record in the final 20 minutes of games now reads 5-0. The next best records in the division belong to Southampton and Swansea at 3-1.
Maresca has practically got everything right as City manager so far, so it’s safe to assume his insistence that a defeat is around the corner will prove true too. But that’s not for fans to worry about right now.
After last season’s soul-sapping relegation, they should be allowed to believe that Maresca’s magic formula will never run dry, and should keep leaning forward in anticipation as soon as the clock hits 70.
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