One touch took Aymeric Laporte out of the game, sending him sliding into no-man’s land. A second took James Maddison past Rúben Dias, last season’s Footballer of the Year, with conspicuous ease. Then came an exchange of passes with Kelechi Iheanacho and an assured finish. Then there was the weaving run that took him past a series of defenders before Iheanacho released Ademola Lookman to score Leicester’s second goal.
Then came his second long-range shot, whipped with menace, that Ederson tipped on to the bar. This one fell obligingly for Iheanacho to tap in the rebound. In 10 minutes, Maddison had conjured a comeback out of nothing. For nothing, too: Leicester’s three-goal salvo may have inspired Manchester City to score two more. But it was a virtuoso display of quality, showcasing a flair player’s full armoury: shooting from distance, mesmeric dribbling, delicate touches and incisive passes.
A venue where City win so often and by such margins lends itself more to doomed heroics by goalkeepers than attacking midfielders. Perhaps not since Kevin De Bruyne’s Gerrard-esque tour de force when Tottenham controversially eliminated City from the 2019 Champions League has one done so much in vain. Until yesterday, Conor Gallagher may have produced the finest performance by a visiting player at the Etihad this season. Then Maddison proved a point while earning Leicester none. While a porous defence sieved six, he opened up the league leaders at will. As Leicester’s fortunes have got worse, his have improved.
Their December has bordered on the disastrous at times. They have exited the Europa League and the Carabao Cup, entered the Europa Conference League, despite Brendan Rodgers claiming he did not know what it is, lost a host of players and all realistic chance of Champions League football. A club who spent 567 days in the top four in the last two seasons, albeit without finishing there, are now 13 points behind fourth-placed Arsenal.
But in the last five weeks, Maddison has mustered six goals and five assists. From the mediocrity of a largely barren 2021, he has rediscovered magnificence. He has been the forgotten man of England’s raft of creators, rarely even mentioned in dispatches by Gareth Southgate now. His friend Jack Grealish became the £100m man. But Grealish, paying the price for a night out, went unused, a spectator as Maddison outshone even De Bruyne, Bernardo Silva and Ilkay Gündogan, terrifically as each played.
Perhaps he had justified Pep Guardiola’s pre-match assessment. The City manager’s praise can be football’s deadliest weapon and, when he called Leicester “exceptional” this week, it threatened to be a savage sequel. Marcelo Bielsa, the man Guardiola has deemed the best manager in the world, lost 7-0 here. Leicester were four down after 25 minutes. Fifteen months after Leicester’s 5-2 demolition of City, four after they won the Community Shield, came perhaps Rodgers’s worst first half since Liverpool traipsed in 5-0 down to Stoke in Steven Gerrard’s final game. But Leicester had the quality and wherewithal to come back from the brink of humiliation.
They nevertheless departed with a worse defensive record this season than Watford. Circumstances contribute, injuries occurred at the wrong time but perhaps the weakest rearguard Rodgers has fielded were eviscerated, confused and confounded, compounding their problems by conceding penalties. Without five sidelined defenders, including their three best centre-backs, he also deemed Wilfred Ndidi unfit to feature. Leicester’s makeshift back four consisted of a midfielder (Marc Albrighton), an odd-job man (Daniel Amartey), a bad signing (Jannik Vestergaard), and a 20-year-old (Luke Thomas). It was a recipe for goals.
Guardiola bemused them by giving them no one to mark. City’s formation consisted of a back four, a holding midfielder, three attacking midfielders and two high, wide wingers. Amartey and Vestergaard stood horribly exposed, knowing the enemy was coming, but not who or when or how as a rotating cast of elusive technicians suddenly materialised. City demonstrated the depth of their talent. Fernandinho became the 14th Manchester City player to assist a goal in the this season.
Often the creator in chief, De Bruyne is not on that list, but he is one of eight to have been varying types of false – or occasionally genuine – nines. A match of a solitary defensive midfielder – the pensionable Fernandinho – was made for their attacking counterparts in both teams. And then Leicester rendered Maddison’s efforts irrelevant with the most mundane of failings. They conceded twice from corners. The prospect of perhaps the greatest Premier League comeback disappeared but memories of Maddison’s brilliance should remain.
