Leicester City 1-1 Norwich City
- Goals: Tim Krul (£4.5m) own-goal | Teemu Pukki (£6.6m)
- Assists: Jamie Vardy (£10.1m) | Emiliano Buendia (£6.0m)
- Bonus: Pukki x3, Wilfred Ndidi (£5.0m) x2, Caglar Soyuncu (£5.1m), Buendia x1
Norwich City dented Leicester’s title hopes and frustrated legions of Fantasy managers with a battling draw at the King Power Stadium.
Daniel Farke’s side delivered precious little pre-Christmas cheer to the 51.4% of Fantasy Premier League (FPL) managers with Jamie Vardy (£10.1m) in their teams by halting his eight-match scoring run.
That was doubly difficult to take for many as the striker was the most captained player of Gameweek 17.
And the Canaries didn’t stop there.
A goal from the thoroughly revived Teemu Pukki (£6.6m) meant that three of the top ten most popular FPL defenders – and the third most-owned goalkeeper in Kasper Schmeichel (£5.4m) – were denied clean sheet points as well.
Instead, those owning major Leicester assets had to make do with scraps.
Vardy seemed to have equalised when he headed home a James Maddison (£7.8m) corner after 38 minutes, only for replays to show his effort was going wide before Norwich keeper Tim Krul (£4.5m) pushed the ball into his own net.
That downgraded Vardy’s contribution to an assist (and just the five points overall) and chalked off the 28.1%-owned Maddison’s involvement entirely.
Only those who like a splash of seasonal schadenfreude would have been pleased with the zero-point return for Krul’s 2.2% ownership that the own-goal produced.
Similarly, only a bonus point award for the 20.6%-owned centre-half Caglar Soyuncu (£5.1m) elevated the returns of any of Leicester’s backline beyond the unremarkable.
All of this came about courtesy of an emerging resilience in a Norwich side that is still wildly inconsistent, but rather more determined to make a fight of it now that their injury issues have finally receded.
Even so, when the Premier League’s second most leaky defence travels to its third most productive attack, predicting goals was, well, predictable.
That Leicester were kept to just one – the first time they hadn’t scored at least twice at home since Gameweek 1 – was down to a fine combined effort from the visitors’ defenders, with three of the top four players for clearances, blocks and interceptions (CBI) wearing Norwich shirts.
Not that this was a bus-parking exercise.
Norwich went toe-to-toe with Leicester across an entertaining encounter, with Pukki’s third goal in four Gameweeks not the only time he breached the Foxes’ backline.
The Finn’s strike was set up by a fine through-ball from the excellent Emiliano Buendia (£6.0m), whose five chances created on the day was only bettered by Maddison.
That sort of productivity is not a one-off for the 0.8%-owned Argentine either. His 41 chances created this season is a full 20 more than his closest rivals in the Norwich side, Pukki and Todd Cantwell (£4.7m), who also happen to be the only Canaries asset with double-digit ownership.
A relatively chunky price tag has probably put most FPL managers off Buendia, and Norwich’s upcoming schedule is unlikely to inspire many more.
A long-running theme involving a tough test and then a purportedly easier encounter kicks off over Gameweeks 18 and 19 with a visit from Wolves and then a trip to Aston Villa. Similar double-headers involving, among others, Spurs and then Crystal Palace and Liverpool and Wolves will take them all the way through to Gameweeks 28 and 29 and a home match with Leicester followed by Sheffield United away.
All of that means investment in their assets is going to be of the major punt variety, with Pukki’s proven goalscoring prowess – he’s found the net against all of the top four now – the only real temptation.
And even then, an injury scare for the striker might not help matters, although Farke’s post-match comments were not overly negative.
The Norwich boss said:
We’re a bit fearful of Teemu’s situation because it seems like he’s fractured his toe in the first half. It was pretty painful for him in the second half and I’m sure that if he had had full fitness he would have converted one or two of the chances for the second goal, but it says a lot about the character of the team that he wants to go further on and to play even with pain.
Regardless of the severity of the injury, Leicester’s players remain considerably more attractive.
Manager Brendan Rodgers has worked some adaptability into his squad, which is just as well with the Christmas fixture pile-up demanding rotation, especially as they also have a Carabao Cup quarter-final against Everton coming up this week.
The Foxes have switched to a 4-4-2, with Kelechi Iheanacho (£5.7m) supporting Vardy up front, on a couple of occasions now. That experiment lasted just 38 minutes against Norwich before the underwhelming Iheanacho was hooked for Demarai Gray (£5.1m) as Leicester reverted to a more standard 4-5-1, and then 4-3-3, formation, as Rodgers noted after the game:
We adjusted the shape. The shape worked very, very well for us last week away at Aston Villa, but we didn’t play the shape well and they were able to get inside us a little bit too easy. We wanted to make the change and then we made another change at half-time to go to 4-3-3. That gave us better positioning on the pitch, better coverage, and we were able to sustain our attacks a little bit more.
Gray, given his first minutes since Gameweek 13, was busy enough – only Vardy had more penalty area touches than the winger – and he could well take more playing time off the likes of Harvey Barnes (£5.9m) and Ayoze Perez (£6.1m) over the coming weeks.
How Rodgers shuffles his central midfield pack is of more concern to most Fantasy managers, however.
Maddison has missed just one league match, and Youri Tielemans (£6.6m) none at all, so far this season. But it seems inconceivable that the pair, owned by 28.1% and 8.4% respectively, will be asked to shoulder such a workload over the four Gameweeks shoehorned into a manic ten days that will round off this year and usher in 2020.
Leicester also have the small matter of Manchester City and Liverpool to play next.
Rodgers, you would think, will want to field his strongest side for those fixtures, marking out Gameweeks 20 and 21 (against West Ham and Newcastle) as peak rotation candidates.
Based on a lack of serious competition for his place, Vardy is arguably the closest to immunity from rotation.
He was certainly unlucky not to continue his scoring run against Norwich, forcing Krul into two saves as well as being denied his goal by the keeper’s (supposed) blunder.
Neither Liverpool’s nor Manchester City’s defence has overly impressed, but Vardy is yet to score against a ‘bigger’ club this campaign, so while he might well remain the most popular player in FPL for now, new managers are less likely to be welcomed into the fold in the short term.
The Foxes’ defence remains the best in the league for both goals conceded (11) and clean sheets (seven), but one shut-out over the last four Gameweeks and the possible risk of rotation – only Ben Chilwell (£5.8m) of their regular starters has had any rest at all – should spark a similar cooling-off period involving those at the back.
City and Liverpool have failed to score just the once between them all season to further curb any enthusiasm for those defensive assets.
How Leicester react to Norwich halting their eight-match winning run in the league will be instructive.
In the meantime, hold and hope for maximum minutes is likely to be the best policy for those of us heavily invested in their key performers over Christmas.
Leicester City XI (4-1-3-2): Schmeichel; Pereira, Evans, Soyuncu, Chilwell; Ndidi; Praet (Barnes 45′), Maddison, Tielemans; Vardy, Iheanacho (Gray 39′).
Norwich City XI (4-2-3-1): Krul; Aarons, Zimmermann, Godfrey, Byram; Trybull (Stiepermann 86′), Tettey; Buendia (Vrancic 90′), McLean, Cantwell (Hernandez 84′); Pukki.
