Leicester 4 Forest 0: Inspired Maddison hits stunning double to save Rodgers’ bacon… and leave Cooper in deep trouble
BRENDAN RODGERS celebrated wildly in the East Midlands derby – aka El Sackico.
And the contrast with Steve Cooper could not have been greater as the glum-looking Forest manager had the look of someone knowing that trouble is around the corner.
Ominously, Leicester owner and chairman Aiyawatt ‘Top’ Srivaddhanaprabha jetted in to watch his struggling team win thanks to a brilliant performance by two-goal James Maddison.
And in their place at the foot of the Premier League are now Forest, who have just four points from eight games.
Weirdly, this is exactly the same record Forest had when Cooper joined the club 13 months ago.
Forest owner Evangelos Marinakis has never been known for patience at his other concern, Olympiacos.
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And the Greek is likely to be even angrier as he has thrown £150million on 23 players yet already, Forest look in deep trouble.
In contrast, during this easy win, you could see the confidence flooding back into a beleaguered Leicester team who will now hope to kick on from their shocking start.
A rare positive this season has been the form of Maddison and once again, he was the best player on the pitch by a mile.
Maddison was involved in all of Leicester’s goals.
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He scored the first with the help of a heavy deflection, played a part in Harvey Barnes’ second, grabbed his 50th Leicester goal with a brilliant 25-yard free-kick and then set up Patson Daka for the fourth.
Yet while this performance will increase calls for Maddison to be given a call-up for the World Cup, do not hold your breath.
The fact Maddison has featured just once for Gareth Southgate – against Montenegro in November 2019 – gives you a fair idea of his chances of playing in Qatar.
The only thing which could see him get a call-up is an injury and certainly, England would get a player brimming with confidence and not afraid to take a risk, something the national senior team is lacking.
Leicester had dropped 11 points from winning positions this season but for once, they failed to mess things up.
Although it helps when the opposition are as bad as Forest.
This was the first League game between these two since February 2014 and they had not met in the top-flight since 1999.
Outside the East Midlands, it is probably not widely recognised quite how much these two clubs despite each other, although this was illustrated by the huge number of policemen placed either side of the away end.
Those Forest fans should have been celebrating the opening goal when Morgan Gibbs-White threaded a pass beyond home defender Wout Faes but Taiwo Awonyi hit the post when clean through.
That wasted chance felt even more painful soon after when Maddison put Leicester ahead with a shot which took a nasty deflection off Scott McKenna.
It was unfortunate for Forest but Jesse Lingard was partly to blame as his lazy attempt at clearing Harvey Barnes’ cross fell straight to Maddison, who had already created chances for both Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Jamie Vardy.
Maddison was then involved in the second two minutes later when he picked out Vardy.
The former England striker, yet to score this season, supplied the ball to Barnes and he sidestepped Neco Williams far too easily before unleashing a terrific shot past Henderson.
That was the moment when Rodgers let his emotions run wild in front of a shell-shocked Cooper.
Maddison made it 3-0 with less than 35 minutes on the clock, his 25-yard free-kick curling around the wall and into the net via the post.
Cooper made three changes at the break, bringing on Serge Aurier, Remo Freuler and Ryan Yates but they made little difference.,
Forest striker Awonyi wasted another good chance and then home forward striker Daka, 11 minutes after replacing Vardy, made it 4-0 with an outrageous flick having started the move by playing the ball out wide to Maddison.
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Leicester still have work to do but this team is too good to be in a relegation fight.
As for Forest, their supporters are now finding out that playing in the Premier League, after promotion from the Championship, is not always that much fun.
