Brighton 5-2 Leicester: Brendan Rodgers’ Foxes suffer fifth straight league defeat

There are arguments to be made for Brendan Rodgers. And there are good reasons why a generous soul might still nod along with him and look to those who operate upstairs. But then there are games like this one.

That is not so much to do with the result, because Leicester lose a lot of matches these days – five in a row now. But what of the game? What of the journey to that increasingly familiar destination? None of them were quite so bleak as this one, and none will have put more heat on the guy calling the shots.

Or rather the lack of them. Leicester had six all game and scored two, somehow. Brighton had 23 and deserved more than five. How many? Maybe seven or eight or nine – what a game Danny Ward had in making so many saves, and what a dog’s breakfast of a defence that meant he was so busy.

Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester suffered their fifth straight league defeat after losing to Brighton

Kelechi Iheanacho opened the scoring with a close-range finish under a minute into the match

But Brighton got on level terms as Solly March’s header took a deflection off Luke Thomas

But that takes us back to Rodgers. This wasn’t a performance where you look to the players he might have signed through sunnier windows, or what other clubs of their stature have spent. No. This was a performance of spineless men. 

A performance of the gutless. Dare you suggest it, it was the performance of players who didn’t show up to run, let alone fight, and that tends to reflect badly on a manager at the best of times, and there aren’t many of them when you’re bottom of the table.

Sure, the game was won by Brighton. It was won by their response in going down after 53 seconds to Kelechi Iheanacho, with the own goal by Luke Thomas followed by strikes from Moises Caicedo and the brilliant Leandro Trossard, before two more from the better Alexis Mac Allister, who also had a screamer disallowed by the VAR at 2-2. But it wasn’t a day for that debate, because Brighton got it done without technological assistance. 

They were immense, a team led by a manager in Graham Potter who is getting the best from his players, and a club that has found ways to emerge stronger from the sale of important assets.

All of which makes it necessary to consider again how Leicester were complicit in their downfall and why Rodgers is deep in crisis. They had five of the starters from their 2021 FA Cup final win in the starting XI, even with Jamie Vardy dropped to the bench, and among their team they had the quality of Youri Tielemans, James Maddison and Harvey Barnes. 

They simply shouldn’t be at the bottom of the division with those players. But maybe there is a lesson here – if a manager spends an awful lot of time complaining that his squad isn’t up to the job, then what does that same squad think of their manager when the window shuts? Time will tell on that, but the early indications are not wonderful.

Moises Caicedo’s finish put Graham Potter’s side the lead after 15 minutes

Patson Daka’s first Premier League goal of the season put Leicester level after 33 minutes

Leandro Trossard’s clinical finish put Leicester ahead once again after the hour mark

Perhaps that is harsh. Perhaps that will all change. But if Rodgers’ recent comments have inspired thoughts of what happened to Scott Parker at Bournemouth, then there has to be the distinct possibility of a similar outcome, especially on the back of a hiding like this. It is the worst run of his career and not that he will relish knowing it, but the last time Leicester lost five on the bounce, they shot Bambi. If Claudio Ranieri lacked the goodwill to get by, then you can only wish Rodgers well.

The irony is the game could not have started much better, with Iheanacho vindicating his selection ahead of Vardy. But what followed was a befuddled mess, encapsulated by Boubakary Soumare’s failure to hold midfield and the peculiar ineffectiveness of James Maddison, who had been one of the few encouraging aspects of their season.

Alexis Mac Allister converted from the spot after Trossard was brought down by Wilfred Ndidi

The Argentinian midfielder then put the icing on the cake with a superb free-kick late on 

Brighton levelled through a Thomas own goal – the defender deflected a Solly March header into his net after being meekly beaten by him to a Trossard cross – and then led through Caicedo when Maddison was careless in losing possession. Patson Daka had Leicester level at the break, which went against all logic of the game, but in the second half everything went wrong for Rodgers.

It opened with a reprieve, when Mac Allister’s thunderbolt from 25 yards was disallowed by the VAR because Enock Mwepu was offside, but even with that let off, Leicester were shot down. The third goal came when Mac Allister rode yet another weak challenge from Maddison, leading to a Trossard finish, and the fourth came from a Mac Allister penalty after Ndidi hacked down Trossard. The final act of a savage kicking saw Mac Allister nail a beauty of a free-kick seven minutes into stoppage time.

He had a great game. So did Brighton as a whole. They truly are full value for where they sit in the league. Sadly for Leicester, the same could be said of both clubs.