Southampton v Leicester City: 5 Key talking points

4. Breaking down the deep-block

In the last two games, as well as many other times, Leicester have really struggled against teams that sit deep and deny space in behind. Even victories at Palace due to Iheanacho’s brilliance, papered over the cracks of continued set-piece failures and struggles to unlock teams that ‘park the bus’.

Even though Leicester had 22 shots on goal and an xG of 2.52, in reality, quality chances were hard to come by, with 12 of those shots being taken from outside the area. (Maddison being responsible for most of these). The speed of moving the ball around was a constant issue, with too much passing in front of the Southampton defence making us rather predictable.

Breaking down a low block requires much more off-the-ball movement to drag players out of position and create space, and the ball needs to be rotated much more crisply and precisely to facilitate this. To put it shortly, Leicester City failed to do this enough.

Many times, Leicester resorted to long balls or long-shots due to running out of patience, a testament to the dogged Saints defence, but also the lack of invention and off-the-ball movement. As a team, this illustrates the areas of improvement, which will hopefully come with continued investment and time for Rodgers to refine his tactics and implement these in pre-season.

5. A sign of Leicester City Evolution?

A glimmer of hope at the end of a dour performance is the fact that Leicester did not lose despite such a lacklustre display. Brendan Rodgers‘ constant emphasis on learning lessons certainly is evident like how we responded to going a goal down and responding to events going against the team. Despite not taking three points, positives must be taken from the character and urgency displayed from going a goal down.

Taking a point from a game in which we never seemed like scoring until the goal represents progress from last season, where we would have probably come out empty-handed. Furthermore, preserving a near-stellar away record, whilst surpassing last season’s points tally with four games to go is not something to be sniffed at.

It must be hoped that wasteful finishing and tired performances are quickly put to one side by next Friday, otherwise, I will likely be repeating myself in a similar vein once again!