Leicester’s Brendan Rodgers proving his worth as world-class manager

The deployment against The Peacocks was slightly different to Rodgers’ games versus Mikel Arteta and Pep Guardiola, as Vardy was tasked with splitting his press between the two centre-backs (Liam Cooper and Robin Koch) and the defensive-midfielder, Mateusz Klich. With the previous games, Vardy was solely deployed on the defensive-midfielder – Thomas Partey and Rodri.

This neutralised the bounce pass option for the midfielders and defenders to utilise, and instead forced them to play quickly through the lines – which both sides (Manchester City and Arsenal) struggled with. Instead, Rodgers decided that occupying the defenders was of equal importance to Bielsa’s diagonal, and vertical, passing game. This proved to be very effective.

A very crucial nuance is that when the Foxes are playing the 3-4-3 formation, they’re deploying an attacking-midfielder as one of the wingers – ordinarily, Dennis Praet or James Maddison. By doing this, the Foxes are creating more of a 3-4-1-2 with this movement, especially when Maddison plays in between the lines. This forces the marking full-back to either commit inside and track the runner (but as a negative, they’re vacating the width) or hold their position and give a lot of freedom to the attacker.

On the opposing wing is either Harvey Barnes or Cengiz Ünder, who’s on the shoulder movement pins the defensive line deeper. By stretching the pitch, they’re allowing the Foxes more space in the middle of the park – it’s no wonder that the “decoy” winger and advancing midfielder (Youri Tielemans) are enjoying excellent seasons so far this season. There’s so much room to operate in, and to create good quality of chances for the forwards.

Defensively, deploying the two deep blocks was a good way of dealing with Bielsa’s notorious 3-3-1-3 formation. It neutralised nearly all of the midfield runners, hence why Bielsa turned to the bench at half-time and replaced Jamie Shackleton (one of the midfield runners) with Ian Poveda – a direct, progressive winger. The clearest indicator that the two deep lines of defence were difficult to penetrate, Bielsa deduced the wings would be more effective – and achieved the same result – not a lot.