Leicester City's Oxford humiliation exposes two problems that cannot be ignored

The Foxes being beaten with ease at the King Power Stadium isn't something new for supporters to witness. In the Premier League, Wolves, Brentford, Manchester United and Newcastle all won comfortably. Even in the Championship last season, Blackburn Rovers, Oxford United, Charlton Athletic and QPR all won at the King Power Stadium with Leicester offering little response.

Saturday's manner of defeat was a new low, losing 4-0 at home to Oxford in League One is something that would have seemed almost impossible to imagine three years ago. Any confidence and positive energy built in the previous 10 days with encouraging displays against Ipswich, MK Dons and Plymouth has vanished.

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Russell Martin is adamant that nothing like this will happen again. He needs that to be the case, not least for his own position. But City need to ensure this rebuild and new era at the football club completely separates itself from the toxic past of recent years.

So what went wrong? 48 hours since the horror show over the weekend, there are different areas that played their part. Starting with the obvious one when you concede four goals, Leicester were simply not good enough defensively.

Christian McFarlane put in his worst performance of the season so far against 18-year-old Mo Missanga, who was making just his second senior appearance. The winger was excellent for Oxford and deserved his goal and assist.

Harry Souttar and Luke Thomas both struggled at centre-back. Thomas was outstanding in the last two league games but looked like a left-back doing a job at centre-back against Mark Harris, confirming that particular experiment should now be over. Souttar, though, looked miles off it from the first minute.

Even when either his defensive ability or his passing has come under scrutiny, the other aspect of his game has generally impressed. Neither were good on Saturday and the defending on show was tough to watch. The City captain addressed the defeat post-match, but now he has to help lead the response from the playing group.

Warren O'Hora and Ilari Kangasniemi, who was left out of the squad altogether because of the EFL's limit of seven substitutes, emerged from Saturday's defeat with their reputations enhanced. At least one of them should come into the side at Stockport on Saturday, possibly both, after Oxford.

The basics of defending weren't there from Leicester's back four and individual performances ultimately fell on the players. However, one thing that falls firmly on Martin is the inability to adapt when opponents clearly identify and target a specific weakness.

Oxford repeatedly threatened down their right through Missanga in the first half, with McFarlane being bypassed throughout. In the second half, Aaron Ramsey's side capitalised on the large space between City's defence and midfield by going long, a phase of play that resulted in their third goal.

"The way that we wanted to build, we tweaked it a little bit so that we can create some overloads in certain areas and capitalise in there on the opposite side," Ramsey explained post-match.

"It was really pleasing that that came to life and then out of possession just being really patient. And then when it came into two areas, being super aggressive in that press. The team were ready from the off, you could sense it."

It was almost as though Oxford knew exactly where to hurt Leicester. That should be near the top of Martin and his coaching staff's to-do list this week

Despite the scoreline suggesting that City were battered and had no signs of encouragement on the ball, there were some signs of encouragement in possession. After going 1-0 down, Martin's side controlled proceedings, came close on a couple of occasions and were unlucky not to draw level at least once.

As expected, they had more possession than Oxford and also registered 11 more touches in the opposition box, showing that the problem was not simply an inability to get into dangerous areas. However, they really struggled to build up from the back and it became too predictable.

Thomas (111) and Souttar (106) had the most touches on the pitch, but Louis Page (90) and Sammy Braybrooke (54), meanwhile, struggled to provide the angles and movement needed to help the backline progress the ball, with Braybrooke seeing fewer touches than in any other game this season.

John Lundstram should help Leicester retain more possession while also injecting experience into a key area of the pitch. But City also need to identify different ways of progressing through the thirds when short combinations are being denied.

One of the biggest concerns was how they failed to recover from going behind. As mentioned above, they did create some half-chances but they never truly took control of the game and it's something that has hindered them for years.

In the Premier League in 2024/25, City fell behind 30 times and lost 22 of them, winning just two. Last season, they conceded first in 20 games and suffered 14 defeats, again winning only two. So far under Martin, the Foxes have fallen behind in two games and lost both.

In the games against Burton and Oxford, Leicester showed glimpses of a response and failed to score the next goal and ultimately allowed the opposition to regain control. That has to change quickly, with teams expected to come to the King Power Stadium throughout the season looking to score first, sit deep and frustrate Leicester.

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