Norwich 1-2 Leicester: Ineffective aside from two moments of quality

At that moment, the game seemed to be going in only one direction. However, in the aftermath of the celebrations, Pereira pulled up with an injury — supposedly hamstring-related, and that forced Brendan Rodgers’ hand into an early substitution. The Portuguese-international was replaced by Timothy Castagne, and even with this being “like-for-like”, there was a complete change of impetus.

The tempo altering wasn’t solely because of the switch in personnel, I think the Foxes taking the lead also played into the reserved approach that followed the Belgian’s introduction. The control of possession — and ultimately the game fell to Norwich City, fairly convincingly. Leicester City didn’t maintain possession for long periods, often opting for speculative passes (clearances) into the channels for Vardy to chase — resulting in turnovers, and also hurried simple passes under pressure from the hosts.

The lack of match sharpness for Castagne was also obvious, as he didn’t seem as mobile on-the-ball when the opportunities to progress play via a carry became available to him. Compare that with the exceptionally good one-vs-one ability of his predecessor and the Foxes resorted to a very one-dimensional attacking structure. Instead of having players capable of beating a man with a carry/dribble, they were limited to passing through the lines and did so with little success.

Partner all of this with Farke’s desire to operate inside of a high-press, which asks all of the forwards to initiate — with a good degree of pressing quality, and you can see why the Foxes struggled. Not to mention the surprising utilisation of James Maddison, the creative hub for Leicester City, who is seemingly being asked to balance a role that involves dropping deep in the building phases of the Foxes’ attacks — before then playing alongside Vardy (on the defensive line) when an attack materialises into the attacking third.