How Leicester should line-up v Napoli in Europa League

Leicester City face Italian giants Napoli in their first Europa League fixture of the 21/22 season. This is how Brendan Rodgers should set up the Foxes.

Our first ever Europa League group stage was impressive, with victories over clubs such as Braga and AEK Athens. However, the knockout stages sent the King Power side home prematurely.

This time around, Leicester will face a tough group to qualify for the knockout stages. In group C we find ourselves surrounded by Napoli, Spartak Moskva, and Legia Warszawa.

To decide the line-up, I will use stats and my own personal biases towards particular players to select a starting XI which can beat Napoli.

Leicester City’s most influential players

I have been collating Understat and Sofascore statistics since the beginning of the season, and a few patterns have begun to emerge from those stats.

In terms of expected goals (xG) minus xG Against (xGA) Brendan Rodgers’ side sit at -4.44 favour. Essentially, we are conceding at least one more goal-scoring chance than our opposition each match.

At the moment, our defensive players are far more involved in matches than our attacking players. This is natural as they are also involved in transitional and attacking build-up, but such a disconnect is unsettling.

Caglar Soyuncu has made the most clearances per game in total out of any in our backline. In fact, he has made 26 total clearances, which is the same as every other member of the backline combined.

On the flip side, Harvey Barnes is ghosting in games, and our second-best attacker by total xG per game – Kelechi Iheanacho – is averaging only 17 minutes a game.

It is also worth noting that Ademola Lookman‘s first 17 minutes for the club against Manchester City got him an xG of 0.54, which is already better than what ‘Barnesy’ has created.

It is clear that some have to be dropped and others brought in, while formational changes will need to be made to accommodate these players.

Leicester v Napoli: The line-up to win

Kelechi Iheanacho and Ademola Lookman must be incorporated into the starting XI. Meanwhile, players such as Boubakary Soumare and Patson Daka must be given a chance, and players like Caglar Soyuncu need a break.

Here we go: Kasper Schmeichel, Ryan Bertrand, Jonny Evans, Jannik Vestergaard, Timothy Castagne, Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans, Soumare, Lookman (AM), Daka, and ‘Nacho’.

A narrow 4-4-2 with a midfield diamond. This provides more options on the counterattack and helps to incorporate the best talents of Iheanacho into the starting line-up.

However, I am also a fan of using Nacho as a target-man AM to hold up the ball. In this context a different team and formation can be used: Schmeichel, Bertrand, Evans, Vestergaard, Castagne, Ndidi, Soumare, Tielemans, Nacho, Lookman, Ayoze Perez, and Daka/Jamie Vardy. This would be the usual 4-2-3-1.

Whichever one Rodgers uses, so long as it incorporates our best defensive midfielders and both Nacho and Lookman, then I think we can edge out this tight contest.