An asymmetrical 4-3-3 unlocks Harvey Barnes’ Leicester potential

Leicester City embarked on their first UEFA Europa League campaign, after the rebranding from its original routes of the UEFA Cup, beating Ukrainian opposition, FC Zorya Luhansk, 3-0 in the initial group stage fixture.

Undeniably, Leicester City’s injury list is becoming increasingly stacked with starting personnel, therefore Brendan Rodgers had to adjust the game plan and tactics to ensure Leicester City began this European adventure in the perfect fashion. This saw an unorthodox formation for the Foxes, an asymmetrical 4-3-3 with James Maddison returning to the starting line-up for the first time this season.

The England-international accompanied Kelechi Iheanacho and fellow England-international, Harvey Barnes, to make an intriguing front three. On paper, this seemed like a standard combination inside the 4-3-3, Barnes and Maddison would adopt the winger roles and Iheanacho would operate centrally. Vertically, this was correct, but horizontally this couldn’t be further from the truth.

I refer to this as “asymmetrical” because of the horizontal formation of the front line. Naturally, Iheanacho drops into an advanced midfield role, often coined the “number 10” role – he’s stated on a few occasions this is his desired position for the Foxes, but with Maddison flourishing in this area, the Nigerian has featured more prevalently as a back-up striker to Jamie Vardy.