JibrinAlmost as soon as Luke Thomas’ header unbelievably hit the frame and not the back of Stoke City’s goal, Gary Rowett’s attention would have turned to Tuesday night’s trip to Middlesbrough.
Leicester City go to The Riverside having not won in the league since January 5, they travel stuck in the relegation zone, albeit having cut the deficit on woebegone West Brom to a point.
They make the journey having not kept a Championship clean sheet since September and know they will face one of the most potent teams in the division.
However, it will not have escaped Rowett’s attention that as much as Middlesbrough love passing the football, they average a league high 58 per cent, possession might not be as many as nine-tenths of the law.
That was certainly what relegation rivals Oxford demonstrated on Saturday when they went to Teesside, sat back, conceded the possession ratio 75-25 and made sure they were tough to break down.
It worked, they escaped with a 0-0 draw that probably did more to harm Boro’s aspirations than improve their own – but it was a step in the right direction and arguably a blueprint for Rowett to follow.
United manager Matt Bloomfield offered no apologies when he said after the game: “We have to understand what are our strengths, and what are Middlesbrough’s strengths. If we tried to go toe-to-toe with them today, with the level of players that they have, and the cohesiveness…
“We’re still progressing as a group, we’ve been in the building a lot less time, so we have to understand that they went to Coventry and had in the 70s percent possession again on Monday. And Coventry are a top team, right?
“They’re such a good team in possession. If you jump and reveal space, they’re going to exploit it. They’re so good at finding the space and exploiting it. So we knew that we had to respect our opposition and have our game plan, and that’s what I’m pleased about.”
Sister title TeessideLive described the visitors’ tactics as ‘deep lines of four and five behind the ball at all times’ which ‘offered Boro so little space to utilise in the final third’.
Yes Kim Hellberg’s team had 24 shots, but Oxford managed 13 and actually hit the woodwork twice. Boro found it difficult to get behind the visitors.
Hellberg admitted his frustration: “We need to get better on all those things, like every team in the world needs to get better. If the games look like this, I think it is a compliment in terms of teams seeing that this is a place where you have to keep the spaces very, very small.
“Oxford are more into it, so they take every minute from a free kick, every minute from a goal kick, they try to get free kicks all the time. They know how to play that way. That could be a difference between different teams.”
Hellberg’s point is that that’s what Oxford do, how they play. Other sides, including City, might not be able to simply turn on the organisation and concede the ball.
Oxford also defend their box pretty well, something you could never claim City are good at. In the first half at Stoke they looked as vulnerable as ever to crosses into the box. Indeed Stoke’s two goals came from Ben Wilmot getting on the end of deliveries from out wide.
But the Us’ approach was instructive. If City go toe-to-toe with Boro they could leave the space for their attacking players to thrive and expose the likes of Caleb Okoli and Ben Nelson to uncomfortable situations.
If they block things up in the middle that will force Boro wide – and that’s when City’s full backs will have to stop crosses, their centre backs will have to head them and Asmir Begovic will have to take charge of his goalmouth. I know, if they could do that they wouldn’t be where they are now.
‘Doing an Oxford’ might not be the stuff of Leicester City dreams but in Rowett, having been their manager for the first half of the season, they have a coach whose fingerprints are all over that team. ‘Doing an Oxford’ might be the answer to helping end Leicester City’s defensive nightmare.
Jibrin
