What is Leicester’s best structure and XI at the moment?

If the Foxes want to field the partnership that prevailed so successfully at the tail end of last season, they have a couple of options. Either switch to a back three and play a 3-5-2 formation, or transition to a very traditional 4-4-2. There’s upsides and downsides to both of these, and I’ll provide those now.

The back three poses a lot of problems for Leicester, particularly with the injuries limiting who can actually play as a centre-back. The best options are Çağlar Söyüncü, Daniel Amartey, and Jannik Vestergaard — the latter being my third pick out of the three. However, with James Justin returning soon, and Jonny Evans slowly becoming an option again, there’s a few better alternatives to play inside the three.

Once you’ve solved the back line conundrum, the midfield has three central positions available — enabling any composition Rodgers likes. There’s also room for both forwards, however, in the wide position you have to balance the choice of wingers and wing-backs. With excellent options for full-backs, it seems fairly limiting to only utilising wingers as the wide-players. You could play Timothy Castagne as one of the centre-backs — and I think his physicality could definitely adjust to the role — but he struggled when fielded there last season.

There’s of course the 4-4-2, but it’s simplistic positional structure does limit the Foxes’ hand in a couple of areas. Only the pivot is available in midfield, meaning that only Wilfred Ndidi and Youri Tielemans can start — instead of having an extra ball-player (or an attacking-midfielder) to accompany them. I also don’t like the passing lanes that the positions naturally form, there’s not a lot of diagonal options in possession and that’s the easiest form of progression.