Tottenham Hotspur 0-2 Leicester: 3 Things we learned

Brendan Rodgers Leicester team aren’t being taken seriously by the ‘big 6’

For those not in the know, ‘The big six’ is a term given by journalists and media to the usual suspects of Liverpool, Manchester United, Manchester City, Arsenal, Chelsea and Spurs. It used to be called the ‘top 6’ but had to be changed quickly to avoid the embarrassment of some of those teams not being able to achieve their arrogantly assumed top 6 status.

Ironically it’s Leicester that has been one of those gate crashers in the last few seasons so you would think that by now coaches and teams would respect Leicester as a genuine threat .  But this isn’t the first time Leicester have travelled to a so called ‘big 6’ team this season. Pep Guardiola and his men bizarrely claimed that Leicester weren’t that great in their 5-2 hammering of the Citizens and Mikel Arteta also claimed the Foxes weren’t that amazing either in their 1-0 defeat.

Jose Mourinho obviously didn’t learn the lesson and kept to form with the big 6 rhetoric, after the game by claiming:

"“I didn’t think either team played very, very well.” Via Leicestershire Live"

This is a classic deflective tactic from Mourinho, when he knows full well that Rodgers and his team outplayed Spurs both with and without the ball. Whether the Portuguese ‘Special one’ believes it or not is another matter but what was clear for everyone to see is that Leicester forced Spurs into errors and overran them with quality. Brendan Rodgers has been crafting his away day tactics all season and the success has been almost perfect bar a flat effort against Liverpool.

Rodgers has deployed a back 4 with wingers tucking in that force the opposition into areas Leicester can attack, sometimes it changes to a back 5 but regardless it is more about concentrating on the counter attack. What was most bizarre from Mourinho is ignoring how well Leicester like to attack space in numbers with his Spurs team either playing a high line or leaving huge gaps between their defence and midfield.

Maddison, Tielemans and Vardy amongst others were lapping up the extra space and were confident in possession. But knowing how to stifle Leicester isn’t too hard if you watch them play at the King Power stadium, keeping the space tight and allowing Leicester the ball can sometimes play into the oppositions hands, especially with how good Spurs are on the counter attack.

However, arrogance played a part today with Jose refusing to set his team up deep at home to what he no doubt believes is an inferior team and coach. He believed his teams undoubted quality would simply over run Leicester. It cost him, it cost Arteta and it cost Guardiola. Who will it cost next?