3 Areas in need of improvement or transfers at Leicester

Stratagems – implement

Occasionally in-game of late the Leicester City players have seemed devoid of ideas going forward. Although we as Foxes fans want to witness this advance in comfortably holding possession, there is a visible deficiency in vision and ideas permeating certain men.

We see Chilwell almost stopping at a very light jog, throwing his arms out at his side, essentially saying to his team-mates: “there are no options or movement out there!?”. In that instance the athlete is 50 percent right and 50 percent wrong: if nothing is on, it is his responsibility to attempt to create by taking on a man, or playing neat one-twos to get to a crossing position or to shoot.

On occasion the advanced midfielders or attackers should have made pronounced runs or subtle indications of intentional moves in channels or through on goal. Rodgers is also at fault here – and yes we can’t even imagine a more fitting Leicester manager – because there should be set plays, patterns and enforced strategy. On the other hand a stratagem – a plan to beat a specific opponent by exploiting their weaknesses – seems nonexistent at times.

Centre-midfield

Youri Tielemans is the man in the middle for us, again FoL can’t nominate many other world-class players we’d swap him for. Yet he is well off his top form this season. In the pre-Southampton press conference, Rodgers, per Leicester Mercury, suggested that Tielemans needed a rest Dennis Praet consequently took his countryman’s place and scored.

Although it’s not all about assists and goals for a No.8 in midfield like the Belgian, he has provided neither in his previous 10 games. His tally is still comparatively on course to equal his half-season contribution from 2019.

A boost is needed for the 22-year-old; maybe he is suffering from fatigue. Either way he’s young and talented enough to find the antidote and recreate his displays from early last year.