How does Rodgers find a system with wingers for Leicester?

To combat this nullifying in approach, Leicester needed to offer something different in possession. They could look to play long, but without a physical presence in the front line, would exclusively lose possession to one of the Arsenal centre-backs. The other avenue would be to carry possession and beat an opponent before passing, to unlock previously covered angles of passing — like Maddison in midfield.

Despite requiring a different dimension to just passing (and very few vertical passes), the Foxes only managed to complete a single dribble in the first-half, out of three attempted.  These numbers are atrociously low, as this gameweek, each team in the Premier League averaged 9.9 dribbles per 90 minutes, quite the disparity when compared with the abject performance of Leicester.

To solve this problem, Rodgers turned to both his ball-carrying wingers at half-time. Ademola Lookman and Harvey Barnes entered the fray, replacing third centre-back, Daniel Amartey, enabling a back-four, and also second-striker, Kelechi Iheanacho. The conundrum of how does Rodgers provide support for Jamie Vardy with an extra forward, and also fitting wingers into a sole system was quite poetically answered with these changes, simply put it doesn’t work.

With a second dimension (ball-carrying) to attack Arsenal, the Foxes offered more danger and offensive impetus in the second-half, with no impact on the result. The possession was “better” from City, but with more space and time — due to Arsenal sitting deeper in their block with a two-goal cushion, it’s hard to attest this to the structure adjustment.