Leicester City travel to London to face West Ham United in the second Premier League game week. Here is the team Brendan Rodgers should choose.
Leicester ground out a 1-0 home win against Wolverhampton Wanderers for their opening match of the season. The King Power side looked dangerous in the first half, though grew lethargic for the second half.
The starting XI for that match was as follows: Kasper Schmeichel, Luke Thomas, Caglar Soyuncu, Daniel Amartey, Ricardo Pereira, Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans, James Maddison, Harvey Barnes, Ayoze Perez, and Jamie Vardy.
Bar a couple of places, this is Brendan Rodgers’ strongest 11. Here is what to expect from West Ham United in our next fixture and how the away team should set up to win the match.
Leicester City’s fitness concerns
There are a few concerns over fitness and injuries which do affect Rodgers’ ability to name the strongest possible starting XI.
We will definitely not see Papy Mendy, Jonny Evans, Wesley Fofana, or James Justin. They are out with long term or persistent injuries. Unfortunately, due to his previous positive lateral flow test for Sars-Cov-2 (Covid-19), Ryan Bertrand will be unavailable for this match as well.
Meanwhile, as reported in LeicestershireLive, James Maddison and Timothy Castagne are fit. Maddison is likely to start. Castagne is unlikely to start, though should feature from the bench. We should still expect Ricky P and Thomas.
What to expect from West Ham United
David Moyes’ Hammers were a feel-good story last season. After the loan signing of Jesse Lingard, the London-based side flourished in the league, scoring plenty of goals alongside the defensive solidity of their team.
However, unless they are trying something tricky, you can name their team sheet for our match well in advance.
This is the expected team: Alphonse Areola, Aaron Cresswell, Issa Diop, Craig Dawson, Vladimir Coufal, Tomas Soucek, Declan Rice, Jarrod Bowen, Said Benrahama, Pablo Fornals, and Michail Antonio.
They will play a direct counter-attacking system, using the ball winning of Rice and the ball carrying of Soucek to transition from defence to attack quickly.
This helped them against a disorganised Newcastle United side, earning them an xG (expected goals) of 3.01 according to Understat. This is very creative, but they were against the worst defence in the league.
How Leicester should line-up
The Foxes should continue with their 4-2-3-1 formation, which dynamically shifts into a 4-4-2 in defence and a 3-2-4-1 when Ricky P blasts forward and ‘Ayo’ sits further inside nearer to an attacking-midfield position.
I want Rodgers to line-up like this: Schmeichel, Thomas, Soyuncu, Jannik Vestergaard, Pereira, Keirnan Dewsbury-Hall, Boubakary Soumare, Dennis Praet, Barnes, Perez, and Patson Daka.
I know, odd to suddenly change the midfield and the striker. Here is why Rodgers should, though probably will not.
Leicester’s backline should remain at its strongest to deal with the creative and strong talents of Bowen and Antonio. However, just matching the West Ham midfield will lead to a congestion of space and limit our creative ability in the final third.
So, having Soumare and Dewsbury-Hall act as the transitional force in midfield, either winning the ball via challenges, or receiving the ball from the defensive line, progressing the ball high up the pitch with either passes into space or direct to Dennis Praet.
Praet is better at penetrating defences, rushing beyond defenders in the half spaces to create chances for either himself, or when he inevitably whips a low ball into the box, for others.
Patson Daka deserves a debut and it would help to find out early in the season how easily we can rotate between Vardy and Daka. Let us know what you think!