James Maddison fails to make his World Cup point as England boss watches on, unimpressed
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James Maddison needed a big performance in front of the England manager to prove he’s worth a chance, but fell considerably short.
It’s certainly a question worth asking: with just a few weeks left before push comes to shove and he has to confirm which players he should be playing, if Gareth Southgate was going to make a trip to a match to watch some players, why pick a Saturday lunchtime match? These are, notoriously, matches often played when it feels like the players haven’t quite woken up yet. And it seems unlikely that he will have left feeling as though he learned anything much of any use at all about anybody.
Perhaps that isn’t really the point. In a world in which matches are routinely televised and the days of having actually turn up at a football ground to see a player are long gone, why does Southgate even need to actually attend them? It may well be that Southgate is making an coded statement saying, ‘Yes, I’m aware that James Maddison is a decent player, so consider the fact that I’ve made the journey here today to be formal notification that I am giving him due consideration’. Perhaps attending this match is the England manager’s way of making his point.
But Leicester have been in a bad place this season. The suggestion that they may still be bound to Brendan Rodgers because it would be so expensive to relieve him of his duties remains persistent – it’s believed that it may cost them £10m to do so – and, coupled with a team with a frequently sieve-like defence, the King Power Stadium has become an increasingly unhappy place as the first few weeks of this season.
The opening stages seemed to hint that the problems surrounding this team are a little more complex than a simple equation of ‘bad defence = lots of goals conceded’. In the first 10 minutes, Leicester midfielders repeatedly gave the ball away to Palace completely unnecessarily, inviting pressure when there was no need. This nerviness was possibly a matter of the febrile atmosphere inside The King Power Stadium transferring into a careless and skittish start, and it can become self-perpetuating; nervousness feeding off nervousness.
As the first half progressed, Leicester did start to assert themselves more effectively. They did look dangerous when actually getting into those attacking positions. The quality of Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Patson Daka have been visible through Leicester’s problems this season, although it did often feel as though Maddison in particular could have done with better coordinated players around him.
When Leicester got within range of the Crystal Palace goal they stung the palms of goalkeeper Vicente Guaita more than once. Barnes and Maddison in particular had an energising effect on the crowd, while Daka’s running and sharp movement on the left-hand side offered a clear pathway to goal. But Barnes and Daka’s combinations on the left felt like Leicester’s best chance of providing a pressure valve for their manager, while Maddison looked somewhat less effectual.
Broadly, the first half felt like a pretty typical Saturday lunchtime first half, played between two teams who’d rather have been on the sofa under a duvet, watching Football Focus. Entirely predictably at a club which has had to suspend its birthday announcements because they were getting too many for people called things like ‘Brenda Nowt’, there were a few boos and whistles as the team retreated down the tunnel, both at half-time and full-time. The well of goodwill among Leicester supporters towards Rodgers has run dry and that sort of performance, while some way short of calamitous, fell some way short of replenishing it.
Leicester improved in the second half, but if Maddison was hoping to make an impression on the England manager, he continued to fall short. A couple of minutes in he spooned the ball well over from just inside the Palace penalty area before blaming the pass for his overcooked finish. He had a shot on goal that was comfortably saved by Guaita, and when a free-kick 30 yards out fell his way with a little over 10 minutes to play, his attempt on goal was deflected wide without looking like it would end with a goal. In the very last seconds, he went down under a challenge inside the Palace penalty area and was booked for taking a dive, meaning that he will now miss their next game against Leeds United.
Had Southgate been looking for a such a player, the introduction of a spritely-looking substitute twenty minutes into the second half might have briefly piqued his interest. But the problem here was that this substitute was Jamie Vardy, who is now 35 years old and effectively retired from international football more than four years ago. But Vardy hasn’t scored a single Premier League goal this season, and although Leicester did push better and harder than Palace throughout the entire second half, they seldom looked likely to break the deadlock.
As the players trudged from the pitch at the final whistle with more booing ringing in his ears, the television cameras lingered on Southgate, looking a little lost in thought in the stand. It’s difficult to believe that he will have taken anything positive from this game. There didn’t seem to be any potential World Cup winners on the pitch on this particular Saturday lunchtime.
To a point, this feels tough on Maddison. In order to impress, players need a strong supporting cast and Leicester’s team continues to look anaemic, while it is very, very clear that the King Power Stadium is an extremely unhappy place at the moment. But a player who wants Champions League football and international football has to demonstrate that they are worthy of this of their own accord, and Maddison fell short of doing so. If anything, a poor game is a great opportunity to shine, to lift yourself above the morass and send a message which says, ‘I am better than this’. Maddison couldn’t manage that on this crucial occasion, and it seems likely that the result will be missing out on a place in that World Cup squad.
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