Legia 1-0 Leicester: Rodgers’ selection headache for the future

In my previous article, I stated that Brendan Rodgers should try the 3-5-2 formation in an attempt to overcome Leicester City’s monotonous start to the 2021/22 season.

And the Foxes boss did just that, opting to play the system in Leicester’s second group-stage game in the UEFA Europa League, against Legia Warsaw — although the choice of personnel was intriguing, and unfortunately not good enough as LCFC lost the fixture, 1-0.

Daniel Amartey came into the defence and played on the right-side of the three, Jannik Vestergaard was the centre-back, and Çağlar Söyüncü started on the left. There’s a couple of issues with this composition, most notably that Rodgers has referenced how the Turkish-international struggles to adapt to playing on the left, and has been playing recently as the right-sided CB in a back four.

There’s also the fragility of Vestergaard, whose lack of mobility forced him to drop deep in defensive phases. This was problematic, especially in the goal sequence — as his positioning allowed Legia’s forward, Mahir Emreli, space to shoot. However, Amartey’s marking of the forward wasn’t good enough and his positioning (ahead of the forward) isn’t smart.

In the midfield, Rodgers opted for a central three of; Youri Tielemans, Boubakary Soumaré, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. I quite liked this, but struggled to understand why Rodgers is adamant to play Soumaré as an advanced-midfielder, instead of utilising him as the defensive-midfielder in the three (a position he’s exclusively played for LOSC Lille), and then allowing the Belgian-international to feature as an #8 — impacting proceedings in areas of creation for the Foxes.