Summary of Leicester City FC January Performance

Leicester City FC managed by Brendan Rodgers is a footballing side that is punching above their weight. Despite a difficult December Leicester City has won the last four games on the bounce. In this blog post, we are going to conduct an opposition analysis report on them to decide what, how, and why they have been so successful.

Brendan Rodgers has consistently chosen the same team knowing his best starting 11, despite last season’s first-team regulars Soyuncu and Perreira coming back to full fitness the preferred team is below:

In the last 4 games, Leicester has been superior to any opposition in their ability to win one on one duels, which is synonymous with their well known high pressure, counter-attacking style. In possession, on average they have conceded more possession to the opposition. Despite this statistic, possession has been proven to be a poor predictor of performance in football. Leicester produced a better percentage of possession to penalty box entry, as well as producing more and higher quality chances than their opposition throughout the four matches.

To delve further into opposition analysis I will be showing how Brendan Rodgers has set up his team to have such a great spell of form in January.

Playing Out and Building Possession in a 4-2-3-1:

An advantage to having versatile players like Maddison and Tielemans means that they can alternate from more advanced roles to deeper roles. With Tielemans able to play as a 6/8/10 and Maddison able to play as an 8/10. Enabling Leicester City to change from a 4-2-3-1 in possession to a 4-1-4-1 when building and creating. Both systems allow a suitable number of players to build possession without losing the attack-minded approach of having a striker occupying the two centre backs, two players in the half-spaces, and two players in wide attacking areas to stretch the pitch.

Tactical implications can be used with the versatility of the midfielders on the pitch, with it being noticed that if the opposition play with 2 strikers Leicester normally builds within the 4-2-3-1 formation, whereas if the opposition has one striker they will build with the 4-1-4-1 formation. There are two reasons for this, firstly it allows greater options when the Goalkeeper/CB's receive the ball with a consistent rotation of the 2 center midfielders to try and find pockets of spaces, whereas if they built with 1 the attacking overload of the opposition press is not as great, making the CB's play riskier passes trying to break lines. Secondly, if there is a turn over of possession when Leicester is building possession there are two central midfield players ready to screen the opposition's two strikers negating a dangerous pass straight into the strikers by the opposition whilst the team is transitioning into a defensive shape.

High Pressure Is Not Everything To Leicester City:

That's right despite common preconceptions due to the energy that is evident to see in every Leicester City's performances, they do not just run around like madmen relying on Jamie Vardy powered by his pre-match caffeine ritual. Instead, Brendan Rodger's has them extremely well organized in a 4-4-2 mid-block that can be expanded to a 4-2-4 when pressing triggers are activated. The starting position is as follows from a goal kick:

The objective for Jamie Vardy and Maddison (player 9 and 10) are to show them one way towards the sidelines.

There is a consistent emphasis on not allowing the opposing team to play through Leicester City's defensive shape, rather send them round. An emphasis is coached on the winger's body shape to show outside not allowing any passes between themselves and the covering Central Midfield player. They use the sideline as another defender setting pressing traps when the ball is passed to the opposition wide player in the hope to keep the opposition that side. Often winning it on the first phase of the press by intercepting/tackling the wide player or on the second phase when the winger passes into a congested midfield. This is where Leicester City come alive in this transition period which is synonymous with Leicester city's counter-attacking style of play. With players that can play defense splitting passes in Tielemans and Maddison to release the counter-attacking players, as well as players like Barnes whose direct ball-carrying abilities, break lines of counter-pressing from the opposition team.

However, setting up in a mid-block against better possession teams means that it often turns into a low block due to the opposition's ability to play in tight areas and switch the ball progressively moving further towards Leicester City's goal. A theme that occurred regularly in the Chelsea match. Leicester recognise times when they can press higher from the 4-4-2 mid-block.

The trigger is when wingers are able to get close enough to the opposition centre backs showing them inside, making sure their body shape stops the centre back from being able to pass to the wide player on their side. This initiates all players to lock on to the nearest man making the opposition play long or play into congested midfield areas.

Leicester does this considerably well averaging 15 regains of possession in the final third. The platform that allows the attacking players to do this is the back four. New signing Fofana and Premier League veteran Evans provide an extremely high line, who are very adept at keeping the play in front of them. With Ndidi one of the best in the league at breaking up play by winning off of the toes of the striker. Therefore, if the ball does go long from Leicester's pressure on the opposition into the striker's feet, Leicester has the foundations to deal with it which is a big reason why they only conceded 1 goal in the 4 games analysed.

The Big Strength that Everyone will Start Talking About:

A big blow last year to Leicester city was losing Chilwell to Premier League rivals Chelsea FC, who was one of their top defenders. The recent trend that has occurred during the last four games is swapping Castagne from LB to RB, with Justin playing on his weaker side at LB. This has become pivotal in Leicester's form, creating lots of chances through combination play between the winger and full-back on each side.

The relationship between the two wingers is blossoming with rotations consistently getting Leicester City in behind the opposition's back four. The attacking capabilities of Justin in particular means that when trying to create in the final third he acts as Leicester City's left winger allowing Barnes to roam into his most effective position as an inverted left winger. Justin is a left-back that's right-footed enables him to draw out opposition full backs to himself with quick combination play inside to get Barnes running at opposition centre backs, which is a big reason why in the shot chart you see the majority of events and goals occurring from the left inverted winger position.

The Star Man:

Youri Tielemans

Position= CDM, CM, CAM

Foot=Right

His relationship with Ndidi is vital to Leicester City's success, complementing each other perfectly. Ndidi is the more defensive-minded player who consistently wins back possession. Whereas Tielemans is the player who is not afraid to take risks by playing forward. He's pivotal in building up possession from the back with his composure in tight situations allowing him to wriggle away from opposition pressure. He ranked highest out of any midfield player his involvements in possession as well as forward passes.

It is an interesting time now for Leicester who sits 3rd in the Premier League, an outstanding achievement for a club with far fewer resources than the clubs they are competing against to get into the top 4. However, with their talisman Jamie Vardy out for a few weeks due to a hernia operation it will be interesting to see how they fair in February.

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