How Brendan Rodgers’ half-time Leicester City tinkering stunted Chelsea

A grueling 0-0 opener for Leicester City saw a difficult trip to Stamford Bridge in their second fixture of the season. Chelsea had actually struggled in their Premier League opening day clash, losing 4-0 away to Manchester United.

A lot of post-game analysis from the opening day draw to Wolverhampton Wanderers highlighted Leicester City’s midfield composition as being overly cautious for a game of that magnitude. It consisted of an extra defensive-midfielder in Hamza Choudhury and James Maddison playing on the left of a flat-four midfield behind Jamie Vardy.

On his return, 11 years after being Chelsea’s Youth Coach, Brendan Rodgers decided to remain with the midfield that earned him a point last time out. The only change to the side was a forced one, Ben Chilwell had injured his hip midweek, leaving space for the veteran left-back Christian Fuchs to start.

The game perfectly fits the term, ‘a game of two halves’, in which Chelsea dominated the first and Leicester the second. With equal levels of domination from the two sides, it was no surprise that when the final whistle was blown, the teams were level 1-1.

Leicester could consider themselves the unlucky party, only leaving London with a single point. But, in the same vein, the game could have easily been 3-0 in Chelsea’s favour before the quarter-hour mark, which would have taken a near-impossible comeback to even salvage a point.

Leicester City at the Bridge

Rodgers’ initial starting XI wasn’t far from being perfect. The midfielders he chose should have been combative enough to deal with a very dynamic Blues midfield. The early issues came more from positioning than personnel and a sluggish start, which from watching Chelsea’s opener at Stamford Bridge, was always going to cause problems.

The Pensioners’ Italian-midfielder Jorginho ran the show in the opening 15 minutes. Helped by the energetic N’golo Kante, Jorginho was allowed a lot of space sat just in front of his defensive line. From here, he progressed the play through the centre of the pitch, calving open a very unorganised Leicester City midfield.

Napoli’s former player’s space came from a positional issue from Leicester. The midfield consisted of; Ayoze Perez wide-right, two central-midfielders in Youri Tielemans and Hamza Choudhury, James Maddison playing left-wing, and a holding-midfielder in Wilfred Ndidi.

Ordinarily, Leicester setup with Maddison playing in the attacking midfield role in the core of Leicester’s midfield, rather than wide-left. Because of the natural positioning of Tielemans and Choudhury, who sit deeper, Leicester’s central-midfield was sitting off of Jorginho’s deep and pivotal position.

Once Jorginho received the ball, one of Tielemans and Choudhury would have to push out of the midfield block to apply pressure. In doing so, they left spaces in the midfield, which enabled runs from N’golo Kante and Mason Mount, which they profited off.

Had Leicester started Maddison centrally, Jorginho would have been essentially man-marked by the natural positions Maddison tends to operate in. It would have required a greater level of individual ability for the Italian to progress the play for Chelsea. Instead, he had time and freedom to allow Frank Lampard’s men to truly control the ball and consequently the match.

Tinkering

Brendan Rodgers seemingly tinkered with this for the second-half, adopting a more narrow midfield diamond. It was fluid, given that the Foxes’ midfielders can respectively play all the positions available in the midfield. Wilfred Ndidi would sit at the base of the diamond, Choudhury, and Tielemans would play on the left and right of the diamond, with Maddison at the top.

This neutralised not only Jorginho but Chelsea. Leicester also increased the intensity with the press and started suffocating Chelsea into making errors within their defensive third, trapping them from progressing the play. Countless amounts of chances fell to Leicester in counter-attacking positions because of how reckless Chelsea became on the ball.

It was this layout change that rewarded Leicester with success, and the reason why the Foxes’ can feel frustrated that it was only one point going back with them to the East Midlands, instead of all three.

Praet promise

The first glimpses of Dennis Praet looked very pleasing. He was brought on to replace Hamza Choudhury in the left of Leicester’s midfield diamond and he excelled. A mere 20 minutes spent on the pitch by the Belgian, but he faultlessly acclimatised to the position and will provide another talented option for Rodgers to ponder.

He recovered the ball four times during his brief moments on the pitch, and always looked to progress the play forward and fast. Well suited to a box-to-box role, which if Rodgers starts favouring the midfield diamond, will be essential to success for the Foxes. Not to mention his partner in this endeavor would more than likely be Tielemans, a player he’s already shown how well he can play alongside.

More from Foxes of Leicester

• Enzo Maresca hails four star Leicester players
• Harry Winks reveals his easy decision to join Leicester
• Southampton 1-4 Leicester City: 3 Foxes positives and negatives
• Southampton 1-4 Leicester: 3 things learned
• Predicted Leicester City starting XI vs Southampton

Read more on Sunday’s game at lcfc.com.

A difficult decision for Brendan Rodgers to consider, most would argue Leicester City played significantly better in the second half at Stamford Bridge than the first, meaning there’s potential for the diamond to start away at Sheffield United. Or does Rodgers need to tinker with the personnel in the midfield, placing Maddison central ahead of Choudhury and putting one of Leicester’s exciting wingers wide-left?

This is the reason he’s in charge, to make these decisions. We’ll only find out the outcome once the squad has made its way to Bramall Lane for another exciting Premier League clash. Regardless of who starts, Leicester will be looking to leave Sheffield with all three points.