Aston Villa 1-2 Leicester: Five Foxes talking points

3) “Second-half team”

Leicester City’s league success this season is much publicised. An element often squandered from the conventional script is the nature of these victories. Before today, 40.4% of Leicester’s goals were in the opening 45-minutes, with the majority coming in the second half. Being slow to start but quick to exploit oppositions second-half malaise, the Foxes have been as opportunistic as their nickname suggests. Today’s match proved that Rodgers’ team are capable of putting their shop stall out early, and capitalising on early gains. Last week’s performance at Anfield is the antithetic comparison.

Invoking memories of Swansea and Liverpool under Rodgers provides reminiscences of possession play. Leicester have been guilty of unadventurous backwards and sideways passing this season. However, this technical platform has provided the basis for intense periods of attacking play that Villa was subjected too predominately in the game’s opening half. The defensive play in the latter half brings talking point four.

4) Leicester City defending deep

Losing Maddison to injury suspended the attacking impetus. Despite being capable of wasting set-pieces and attempting overzealous shots from range, the attacking midfielder’s importance to Leicester City’s offensive moves cannot be dismissed. Without him, the balance going forward disappeared. If Youri Tielemans is Rodgers’ coach on the pitch, then Maddison is his conductor. Directing the pitch and momentum, and delivering rich symphonies of play when at his best, today’s crescendo masterfully opened the scoring. Early rumours suggest Maddison’s injury is a reoccurrence of last year’s hip injury, the severity is currently unknown.

While the orchestra halted with Mendy’s introduction at Maddison’s expense. What replaced it was a solid defensive sponge, absorbing Villa’s offensive play. Dismissing the Birmingham outfit as a one-man team missing their talisman would be to underestimate the progress made at Villa Park this season. Grealish’s replacement Anwar El Ghazi is capable of rich play, as shown on his four-goal run at the crux of 2020, and record signing Ollie Watkins famously devastated Liverpool earlier in the season. Leicester showed they were capable of switching play to sitting deep to defend a lead. Per Vavel, Rodgers noted post-match that “[Villa] had momentum so we had to stand up, but we withstood it.”