How Leicester boss Brendan Rodgers outthought Pep Guardiola

Alongside this, the Foxes set-up their 5-4-1 very narrow, a perfect decision against a side with no recognised striker in the starting line-up, and only 19-year-old Liam Delap, son of former Stoke City midfielder, Rory Delap, on the bench. The small pockets of space available to Manchester City were in the wings, for full-backs – Kyle Walker and Benjamin Mendy, and even they were pressured out of playing.

Pep Guardiola isn’t necessarily a fan of crossing the ball into the box, probably due to the heights of his forwards, but his Manchester City side have scored frequent goals from reaching the by-line and cutting the ball back across goal. In fact, during the 2018-19 season, 74% (86/116) of all Man City’s goals came from less than 15 yards out – with 22 coming from inside the six-yard-box.

To create chances such as these, Guardiola asks his full-backs to push high and forces his wingers to invert (play inside the opposition full-back). He also asks his attacking-midfielders – most commonly, De Bruyne and Bernardo Silva to make runs in the same channels. It causes an overload of players and allows the Citizens ample space to cut balls back across the goal. If you re-watch the previous game at The Etihad (from last season), two of their three goals come in this fashion.

To negate this movement and interplay, the Foxes narrow 5-4-1 facilitated either one of the wide centre-backs to engage the space and stop the pass even finding the inverted winger, or one of the central-midfielders would track the runners and force the play in another direction. On the off chance they were able to get in that space, I distinctly remember a Kyle Walker cross, Leicester City covered all the options and normally blocked the cut-back.

It was sensational positional discipline, from a team yet to play a system like this. Brendan Rodgers definitely learnt from the previous fixture – which ended 3-1 in Guardiola’s favour, and understood which areas hurt the King Power side. People say, me included, that Rodgers can sometimes set-up against the “big six” with an inferiority complex, but that wasn’t the case – even with a low block. This was about understanding how to limit your opponents, whilst offering the best way to damage them.