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A winning start but not quite the perfect debut for Ruud van Nistelrooy and Leicester after all?
As debuts go it was pretty much perfect, and not just for Leicester supporters and Ruud van Nistelrooy.
Anyone who wants to know what his tenure will look like need only watch back the 3-1 win against West Ham on Tuesday.
Within it was everything: the tactical blueprint, the highs of a Jamie Vardy-led attack and a more proactive approach, but also – buried beneath the score line – the essential flaws that will almost certainly doom Leicester to relegation.
That might seem like harsh analysis after such a big win but in reality this wasn’t at all convincing. West Ham had 31 shots and an xG of 3.1, the highest figures conceded by Leicester in any game this season apart from the 4-2 defeat at Arsenal in September.
First, the positives.
Supporters demanded a more expansive style of football after the negativity of Steve Cooper and Van Nistelrooy was true to his word, reinstating the 4-4-2/3-2-2-3 formation used by Enzo Maresca, as he said he would in his first press conference: “It is something that was very well developed here when Enzo came in. Obviously in the Championship, the team was a lot more dominant,” he said.
“I saw that as an advantage coming here.”
That caveat - that the team could dominate in the second tier - is an important one, because although in bursts the system worked well, particularly in Facundo Buonanotte and Bilal El Khannouss linking centrally, Leicester were repeatedly carved open.
Jamie Vardy’s opener was the best of that approach, with Khannouss’ through-ball showing the benefit of crowding the middle with number tens, while Van Nistelrooy also gets credit for the performance of under-used Kasey McAteer and for dropping Wout Faes.
Jamie Vardy is ruled ONSIDE and Leicester have an opener!#PLonPrime #LEIWHU pic.twitter.com/ph5R6MqfmE
— Amazon Prime Video Sport (@primevideosport) December 3, 2024
He also made early subs that positively impacted the game, making a double substitution on the hour mark, far earlier than Cooper would have.
More green shoots, then, but really not enough to counteract the nagging feeling Van Nistelrooy isn’t what this club needs, because aside from those tactical flashes it was an attacking display of vibes; of new-manager bounce energy and expansive football that simply cannot work for a promoted club.
Cooper’s system might have been overly negative but in appointing Van Nistelrooy, a man with only one year of experience managing one of the biggest clubs in the Netherlands, Leicester appear to have swung too far the other way.
It is simply not possible to play a hybrid formation and a progressive 3-2-2-3 with a squad of Leicester’s quality.
Judging by the West Ham game – judging by a remarkably open defence against arguably the Premier League’s most confidence-stricken side – Van Nistelrooy and Leicester are about to find this out the hard way.
In fairness, there is very little to be done. Leicester could sink into the defensive abyss of Cooper’s tactics and endure a miserable season or they could embrace something more fun, more fluid, and get the same end result.
As for Van Nistelrooy, he already looks like just the latest manager to prefer style over substance, knowing that his reputation depends upon developing a tactical brand rather than actually achieving the season objectives.
On another day West Ham would have been 5-1 up at half-time and panic would already have set in. In the long run, it might have been better that way; an early warning shot that forces Van Nistelrooy into a humble rethink.
Instead he will feel emboldened now to continue with a tactical approach that hasn’t helped a promoted club survive in over a decade.
Perhaps not the perfect debut after all, then, but rather an ominous warning of what’s to come.
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