Brendan Rodgers is struggling with substitutions at Leicester City

Back-to-back home defeats for Brendan Rodgers for the first time in eight years – back to when he was in charge of Swansea – as Leicester City’s loss to West Ham United was followed by defeat to Aston Villa.

It was a 91st minute Ross Barkley strike that settled the fate of the game, but in my opinion, the damage was done to Leicester City thirteen minutes prior to the goal, as Rodgers decided upon replacing Nampalys Mendy with academy graduate, Hamza Choudhury.

Aside from the obvious disappointment, replacing a defensive-midfielder with another defensive-midfielder as your last possible substitution – with the score at 0-0, it also made no sense tactically with a disparity of qualities between the two personnel’s.

Mendy is an excellent controller of possession, very unlikely to force the play and lose it unnecessarily. He offers a great outlet to the defenders as he’s confident enough to receive the ball facing towards his own goal, but most importantly, his positional awareness is exceptional – he’ll never leave pockets of space behind his positioning for opposing midfielders/attackers to exploit.

To contrast, Choudhury offers none of the above. This isn’t to say the 23-year-old offers nothing to Leicester City, his ball recovery play is astute, albeit inconsistent as he’s known for giving away fouls. He’s occasionally a good player in the press, although that’s only true during a double pivot where he’s accompanied by a defensive-minded midfielder plugging the hole’s left by the ball-focused Choudhury.

It’s for the above reasons that the substitutions makes little sense to me. Mendy has been deployed frequently in the early stages of the Premier League season, but coming off the back of a two week International break, should’ve had the energy to play out 90 minutes. The only viable reason for using Choudhury, which Rodgers stated himself, was to add extra legs in the midfield, but Mendy had plenty left in the tank, in my opinion.

Bemused by this initial substitution was further compounded by the arrival of Islam Slimani for Kelechi Iheanacho, making his first appearance for the Foxes since 16th January 2018. A lot of Leicester City’s faithful have cried out for a “target man” figure, which Slimani definitely embodies, but to be used before Cengiz Ünder is unexplainable.

The full-backs of Aston Villa, Matty Cash and Matt Targett, both looked fragile when being targeted directly – which Harvey Barnes did infrequently and should’ve attempted with more consistently (especially after Cash’s booking in the first-half). The bread and butter of Ünder’s game is relentless direct running at his opposing number and would’ve caused Targett a lot of issues, instead, Ayoze Pérez was left to operate in the half-spaces and limited to purely his defensive responsibilities – uninspiring.

It’s these tactical adjustments mid-game that Rodgers has struggle with throughout his tenure at The King Power Stadium. If his original game plan is effective – such as the game against Manchester City, then there’s little issues in the fixture. However, if Leicester City go behind/struggle to take the lead, not only does the confident take a massive hit but the trust in the Northern Irishman’s tactics seems to dissipate as well.

Unfortunately, the lethargic passing play was a permanent problem throughout the fixture. Midfielders didn’t drop to receive the ball enough, and even when they did, couldn’t connect the play into the advanced midfielders.

Injuries are definitely causing issues for the Foxes and it’s directly impacting the fluidity of Leicester City’s attacking play. There’s still enough quality in this thinner version of the squad Rodgers has at his disposal, it’s his job to utilise the available players to their full potentials. At the end of the day, it’s a managers job to do this, and Rodgers’ has quite the reputation with regard to doing just that – let’s see him embellish this challenge.

Lastly, debutant Wesley Fofana was exemplary. To see a 19-year-old command the defence like he did, always scanning the pitch upon receiving the ball to see if he could progress play – which was possible on a few occasions into Ayoze Pérez. His aerial dominance was superb, it’s worth mentioning that Ollie Watkins – Aston Villa’s lone striker, is a converted winger so his presence in the air is somewhat underwhelming – aside from attacking crosses in the box.

With news that Caglar Soyuncu is anticipated to miss the next few months, Leicester City have found an excellent replacement, it’s merely a shame they won’t form a partnership this calendar year. Jamie Vardy is seemingly unavailable for the UEFA Europa League visit of Zorya Luhansk this coming Thursday, but thankfully is supposedly ready for the trip to The Emirates at the weekend.