5 things that went wrong in Leicester’s 0-3 loss to West Ham

Leicester City’s dream start to the 20/21 season came crashing down today with a 0-3 home defeat to West Ham. Here’s what went wrong.

You’d be forgiven for thinking that the Leicester City on show this afternoon was a different beast entirely to the one that put five goals past Manchester City last week. The Foxes looked a shadow of themselves as they slumped to a 0-3 loss at the King Power Stadium, with goals from Michail Antonio, Pablo Fornals and Jarrod Bowen sinking the East Midlanders’ early title charge.

Leicester didn’t register a shot on target in the game and looked totally outclassed by a Hammers team supposedly in a relegation dogfight. Considering Brendan Rodgers’ men fell to such a convincing scoreline, it’s clear that something wasn’t right in City’s approach to this game. Here’s FoL’s top five picks for what went wrong.

Formation, personnel and tactics

From the outset, it became very quickly apparent that Leicester City showed far too much respect to West Ham United. I’m sure you’re familiar with the old adage never change a winning team, but I’m sure an exception can be made when travelling from Manchester City away to West Ham at home (with no disrespect at all intended to the Hammers). The East London club have been tipped to struggle this season and playing three-at-the-back against a side that has a track record of utilising one up front just doesn’t make sense. As usual, the Foxes dominated possession, but struggled to break down West Ham’s defence with only two central midfielders in Papy Mendy and Youri Tielemans.

Stranger still, the Foxes’ four wide players in Rodgers’ 3-4-3 were seldom used as Leicester seemed insistent on trying to split the Hammers’ back three with long balls to Jamie Vardy and Harvey Barnes, with limited success at best. Considering this, I can’t help feeling that there was a mismatch between Rodgers’ choice of tactics and formation, with too much of creative burden placed on Tielemans in the 3-4-3. If Leicester had approached this game with a 4-1-4-1 formation with Dennis Praet joining his compatriot in midfield, then we might have been looking at different result today.