Real Football Man All of the Football, All of the time
Another week and it’s another ‘six pointer’ at the bottom end of the Premier League table as champions Leicester play host to Hull and they will undoubtedly be looking to build on the Monday’s home win against Liverpool, one that subsequently pulled them out of the bottom three.
That was Craig Shakespeare’s first act in charge of the club since the sacking of Claudio Ranieri, the question now is what that a performance in isolation or will Shakespeare’s second act this Afternoon turn out to be more of the same and make the sacking of Ranieri much ado about nothing.
If Ranieri was brave enough to watch Leicester vs Liverpool on Monday he would have been asking himself “where on Earth did that performance come from?” Jamie Vardy was the man of the hour again as he scored a brace while the pick of the goals must be Danny Drinkwater’s effort before half time which fizzed past Simon Mignolet.
It was a much welcome win for Leicester, how much of that was down to Shakespeare simplifying the tactics can be argued, the bigger point that will be argued is how much did the Leicester players think to themselves “right we fancy this one”
I guess it’s conjecture as we’re not really going to be privy to the conversations that went on the background but it’s fair to say that the club have lost a lot of goodwill after their fairytale success last season, will the club owners care though? Not if it means Premier League survival in May.
And Premier League survival is the same objective for Hull. Marco Silva brings his side to The King Power this Afternoon knowing that a win would see the club potentially move out of the bottom three, should other results go their way.
But should they win then they would pull Leicester right back into matters in the dropzone, we really are in ‘6 pointer’ territory now. Hull were unfortunate not to be on the right side of the relegation dotted line at the end of last weekend.
A late Burnley equaliser meant that Hull had to make do with just a share of the points at The KCom Stadium last Saturday. A draw that sees them 19th in the table instead of 17th, such are the fine margins at the bottom of the table right now.
It’s only one win in the last four games for Hull but that said it’s only one defeat in the same time frame. That run of results has seen them beat Liverpool, draw with Manchester United at Old Trafford and a slightly contentious defeat at Arsenal.
If you were to offer Hull fans 4 points from that sequence of results they will have no doubt bitten your hands off, but the fact that they have got those points on the board is testament to the job that Marco Silva is doing at Hull especially in such a relatively short space of time.
Time is the one thing Hull did not have when sacking Mike Phelan they needed a man who could come in and turn things around right away. The appointment of Silva until the end of the season certainly raised some eyebrows but should he keep the club up then it will be nothing short of a masterstroke.
The question is what can they get from Today’s trip to the defending champions. The answer unfortunately is not a lot, I think Leicester have got out of their rut after their win against Liverpool on Monday and can only see it being back to back wins for The Foxes under Craig Shakespeare. Home win for me.
