The teething period of using 3 defenders at Leicester City

When playing either of the 3-4-1-2 or the 3-4-3, Caglar Söyüncü will play as the left-sided centre back. This negates how frequently Leicester City are able to play progressive football, because when the opportunity arose to make a pass through the lines, it would occasionally fall onto his weaker left-foot.

While the Turk is adept as using his weaker-foot, 25 of his attempted passes in the game were using his left-foot (24.2%). But, considering Rodgers implemented the Turkish international to be the centre back with freedom to progress play – his 90 completed passes surpassed Jonny Evans (47) and Ryan Bennett’s (34) total combined, it’s not favourable for these chances to fall onto his weaker foot.

This problem also occurred with Youri Tielemans. Again, the Belgian is incredibly two-footed and was able to make a lot of progressive passes – 53 of his 85 passes went forwards (62.35%), even with 16.6% (13) of those falling onto his weaker left. The number of passes with their weaker foot don’t appear to be particularly high, but given Kelechi Iheanacho played 58 minutes of football, he completed only six passes with his stronger left-foot.

In a similar vein to Söyüncü, Tielemans was deployed as the progressive midfielder and saw a lot of the football, 78 attempted passes and 95 touches – only Söyüncü (102) had more touches. For reference, third highest was James Justin with 66 touches.