Foxes of Leicester
Fansided

Leicester turn attention to replacing Arsenal in big six

By Elliot Mackness

Mikel Arteta manager of Arsenal (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images)
Mikel Arteta manager of Arsenal (Photo by Catherine Ivill/Getty Images) /
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Leicester City
Ollie Watkins of Aston Villa battles for possession with Caglar Soyuncu of Leicester City (Photo by Tim Keeton – Pool/Getty Images) /

The Fox wall

Leicester City are rather fortunate. Thanks to its recruitment, the Foxes have a defensive wall to rival the best in Europe. That is, when they play together. Nevertheless, we have the most balanced central defensive partnerships, and the most terrifyingly competent fullback rosters.

Arsenal are no pushovers either in this regard, though they have only recently found a partnership which functions well at the back. Let us not forget Arsenal’s left-back, Kieran Tierney. A lovely young scot, eclipsed partially by the heights of Andrew Robertson, but he most certainly is going places. So, do not count their defence out either.

So, let’s look at some stats. The King Power side have nine clean sheets this season, conceding an xGA (expected goals against) of 30.08, actually conceding 27. Doing some maths, this means an xGA of roughly 1.2 per match, and 1.02 goals per match.

These figures mean that the Foxes are preventing a plethora of chances, with 7.29 in xGA being accumulated over the past five games home and away. There may not be many chances, due to the possession-hungry system Brendan Rodgers has Leicester City playing, but when the opposition do eventually hit on the turnover, they are good chances.

Leicester’s best defenders have undoubtedly been Wesley Fofana, Jonny Evans, Caglar Soyuncu, Ricardo Pereira, and James Justin. Fofana and Justin are unfortunately out, and it has been interesting to see how the ‘gaffer’ has sought to play Timothy Castagne and Ricky P both on the right rather than have two aggressive fullbacks.

Leicester City definitely have a strong wall of foxes to prevent goals, and Arsenal will do well to get passed them. Note, it does entirely depend on if BR chooses to play Luke Thomas again: he is less positionally astute, and this does leave the centre-backs with more work to-do than if – say – our third Belgian international were playing on the left.

Arsenal on the other hand have eight clean sheets this season, conceding an xGA of 29.50, actually conceding 26. Their away defensive record is actually the third best when judged on xGA. Leicester are ninth at home.

I do rate the Gunners’ defenders, especially Rob Holding. He was almost entirely written off, and now he is the starting XI centre-back providing the more composed role – though much less composed it has to be said – that Jonny Evans brings to the King Power. To quote a single statistic, he has made four clearances per game: that is actually a lot of defensive work.

This will be a very interesting defensive battle. Though the East Midlands outfit has conceded more in xGA, meaning they are more at risk of conceding a goal, and Arsenal are defensively very sound, the ability to score goals is more divergent.