What is Leicester’s best structure and XI at the moment?
Overall, I think that Brendan Rodgers’ best bet is to introduce Kelechi Iheanacho alongside Jamie Vardy. To facilitate this, either play a 4-3-3 and drop Ademola Lookman, but the RB Leipzig loanee was my “Man of the Match” versus Burnley. This solution would also have the Nigerian drifting in from the right-side and that’s not his game. Instead, playing a 3-5-2 could be the best option.
Add an extra central defender to provide screening cover to Jannik Vestergaard — who could benefit of the extra defensive coverage (he’s also very familiar with back three formations). Both the wingers “can” start, although I doubt Rodgers would start both, instead Lookman could play as an inverted winger — like he did for the opening exchanges against Burnley, and one of the wing-backs can start on the right.
This is what I’d suggest; Kasper Schmeichel, Timothy Castagne, Çağlar Söyüncü, and Daniel Amartey. Ricardo Pereira, Wilfred Ndidi, Youri Tielemans, Harvey Barnes, and Ademola Lookman (#10). Jamie Vardy, and Kelechi Iheanacho — in a 3-5-2 formation. This allows a lot of the “key” players to start, and also provides versatility in positioning.
For example, when one of the wing-backs (mainly Harvey Barnes) advances, Castagne can push out of the defensive three into a left-back position to create a back four. There’s also plenty of room for diagonal passes throughout the pitch, and this is crucial to Leicester’s verticality. Not to mention, having Lookman centrally could offer a few intriguing dimensions to the Foxes attack — either bypassing his defender one-vs-one, or doubling up with the wing-backs and creating a numerical advantage.
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It’s slightly unorthodox, but I think it’s the system that allows the most key players to start. It would require a bit of work in training — so players understand how to position themselves to offer for possession from teammates, but it can’t bottleneck the output of Leicester City anymore than the current system is. Only a single point from the aforementioned games isn’t anywhere near good enough, and the performances have also been incredibly underwhelming.