Brendan Rodgers has never beaten “mentor”, Jose Mourinho. Leicester City fell victim to the deep-block, counterattack of Tottenham Hotspur on Sunday.
After the loss to Spurs, Mourinho claimed that the game was over in the first-half and given the 3-0 score line, I’d be naive to disagree. So, what went so catastrophically wrong in the opening 45 minutes, that Leicester City – who described the game as a “must win” – ended the half so definitively behind?
Firstly, it’s worth outlining the tactical norms of Mourinho and how he’s utilising this structure at Tottenham. A common theme post-restart is the use of his traditional low-block, essentially meaning both the defensive and midfield line sit in deep, defensive positions when out of possession. This isn’t uncommon for Mourinho, especially with his current Spurs side, as he’s tends to partner this defensive structure with an explosive front-line, ordinarily Harry Kane, Lucas Moira and Heung-Min Son, that looks to utilise counterattacks after sucking the opposition into their defensive third. After watching the opening exchange of the game, it was clear that Mourinho was deploying this system.
The deep-block consisted of the midfield three; Giovanni Lo Celso, Harry Winks, and Moussa Sissoko, sitting goal-side of the ball whenever the Foxes’ back line, or even midfielders were in possession. The idea is to neutralise all the passing lanes, and to let certain individuals – Ryan Bennett and Wes Morgan, carry the ball out of defence and out of their “comfort zones”, as Mourinho worded it.
The player who really struggled to impact the game through this was Youri Tielemans, in the first half, the Belgian only made a single key pass – in the 42nd minute, when the Foxes already found themselves three goals down. He struggled to find pockets of space to receive the ball from the defenders, and was limited to a recycling of the possession game – rather than his progressive game which we’ve seen frequently in recent matches. Given how important he is to building Rodgers’ attacks, neutralising him was an effective nuance from Mourinho.
He wasn’t helped by the lack of movement in the final third, as it was difficult for Leicester City players to find space in a congested defensive structure. Regardless of this, the players needed to work harder to enable space for each other, as ultimately, that’s the way to play through Spurs and Mourinho’s system.
There’s a connotation around movement, that when you offer for the ball and don’t receive it, that you’ve made a “bad” movement. This couldn’t be further from the truth, every individual piece of movement – that is offensive – helps to restructure the oppositions defence. The player may not directly receive the ball after moving, but they’ve given extra space to another player who is now free to collect the ball. It’s the art of decoy runs, causing confusion and it’s what Spurs did so effectively during their little time on the ball.
For example, the first goal, it’s Harry Kane’s movement that not only gives Heung-Min Son space to cut inside and find a higher percentage shot, but it also draws James Justin into an area he doesn’t want to be in as the right wing-back. A slice of fortune for Son, as it takes a wicked deflection of Justin, but it’s the movement that nets Tottenham Hotspur’s the goal.
On the contrary, there was little-to-no movement from the Foxes. Mourinho stated that he wanted his defensive line to sit deep, negating Jamie Vardy, and other forward runners, the space in-behind the defence. They were successful in doing this, but Leicester City showed no real desire to turn the Tottenham‘s defenders towards their own goal, the game was played in front of the deep-block and that’s incredibly easy to defend against – especially for a Mourinho team.
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I think that the opening five minutes were fairly positive for the Foxes, having six touches in Spurs’ defensive third and only allowing them two in our defensive third. But, as is so often the case, the confidence left the players as soon as they went a goal behind. The belief in Rodgers’ match plan had been diminished and it was palpable.
Looking at Leicester City performance out of possession is even worse, Rodgers’ tactical setup was considerably naive given how obvious Mourinho was going to play. Playing a high-line back three, consisting of Jonny Evans, Wes Morgan and Ryan Bennett, against the aforementioned front three was a disaster waiting to happen.
Personnel wise, the Foxes don’t have a great deal of experienced options given the injuries and suspensions, but it’s the managers job to utilise those at his disposal and to get the best out of them. This was quite evidently the wrong approach, even if the three at the back was the best option, playing such a high-line became tactical suicide.
Underlying all of this, Leicester City played an alright game of football. To leave the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium with 71% possession, 24 shots to their 7, and an xG – expected goals – of 1.3 to their 1.8. Although the Justin own-goal accounted for 1 of their xG. The statistics would argue the Foxes were unlucky and to a certain extent I’d accept that. Unfortunately, you can’t allow a team to dissect you as easily as Spurs did and expect to leave the game with points and for me, that was down to Rodgers’ setup.