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

Overall, the midfield offered very little progression in possession. Aside from Dewsbury-Hall and Soumaré, all of Leicester’s outfield players would take restrictive touches upon receiving possession limiting the passing lanes available to them, and thus making the Foxes very predictable. The aforementioned players would open their body when receiving (not all the time) and allow a couple of lanes for passes, instead of closing all but one lane — like the rest of the team.

Providing the width in the formation was Luke Thomas and Timothy Castagne. The wing-backs were the only options playing with natural width, and this also limited how progressive they could be in possession. In the team I constructed, I had Castagne as one of the defensive three, allowing Harvey Barnes to feature as one of the width options. This is facilitated by having two full-backs (Castagne and Thomas/Ricardo Pereira) in the setup to allow freedom for Barnes to play as a winger in the “five” across the middle.

With two full-backs operating as the wing-backs, LCFC didn’t have enough attacking output — especially in one-vs-one’s, to create chances from the wings. The 25-year-old was definitely the better of the two, as his decisive one-two combinations with the right-sided midfielder, or forward, did occasionally find him with possession at the byline. However, Thomas’ problem was his limitations as a dribbler forced him to pass in possession — every time — and he rarely had players advanced ahead of him.