The Brendan Rodgers era at Leicester City has for the most part, been a great success. However, this season has seen the Foxes performing at a level far below the high expectations that fans have become accustomed to over the last three years.
LCFC currently sit 10th in the Premier League, 12 points behind Manchester United who occupy the final Champions League spot in fourth. Subsequently Rodgers’ position at the helm has come into question from the Blue Army after a season filled with many frustrating results. And it’s not just those who are Rodgers-Out that are left increasingly annoyed by some of the decisions the Leicester City manager has made.
I have been a fan of Rodgers since he became Leicester manager back in 2019, and for the majority of that time, have endorsed the decisions he has made. However, as much as I am a fan of him and have enjoyed having the Northern Irishman as our manager, he is not perfect and this season has shone a light on that.
Leicester City’s zonal marking
For the vast majority of this season Rodgers has deployed a zonal-hybrid marking system when it comes to defending set-pieces. In the early days of Rodgers managing LCFC this was fine, and in late 2019 Leicester City boasted the best defence in the league from set-pieces.
However, as personnel changed the zone became less effective, this was first noticeable in the early stages of last season where the Foxes seemed to have a weakness in defending set-pieces. At that stage it was only a weakness, and I could understand Rodgers wanting to persist with the zone at the time as the east Midlands side had once been extremely strong at defending corners with the zone.
But it was the beginning of this season that the zone fell apart. Every game Leicester looked like conceding from set-pieces, and generally would. By December, the Foxes had the worst record from set-pieces in the league before Rodgers finally changed to a more traditional man-to-man marking system.
The issue present isn’t the fact that he changed system, it’s the fact that it took months of conceding goals and throwing points away before a change was made. Had he changed to man-to-man marking when it became clear to all the fans that it wasn’t working, than Leicester may not be in as low in the league as they are.
It was clear that the zonal marking system was not working for the Foxes defence with Jonny Evans and Wesley Fofana absent, however the 49-year-old stubbornly persisted, a trait of his that hasn’t gone unnoticed by Foxes faithful.
Questionable tactics inviting pressure
As mentioned earlier, the majority of tactical decisions that Rodgers has made, I have been in support of with the few exceptions here and there. Yet this season the LCFC manager has made some questionable decisions that have come back to bite Leicester.
In the Foxes’ most recent Premier League game against Brighton and Hove Albion, Patson Daka opened the scoring shortly after the commencement of the second half. Subsequently, the City gaffer decided to shut up shop and attempt to hold onto a 1-0 lead rather than take the game to the visitors, inviting pressure onto the Foxes backline.
This resulted in Brighton being able to snatch a late equaliser after facing little to no pressure for the majority of the second half. This isn’t the first instance that Leicester have let a lead slip due to sitting back and allowing the opposition to attack.
In December, the Foxes blew a two-goal lead to Liverpool after deciding to sit back and attempt to absorb the persistent pressure rom the Merseyside outfit. This would have the same fate as the Brighton fixture with Leicester City failing to hold on.
Now I have no problem with Rodgers advising the players to sit back in an attempt to hold on to a lead. But that is something that I can only support for the final five minutes of a close encounter. Not for upwards of half an hour when the game is still there to be won.
And it appears that the players aren’t a fan of this either, with James Justin voicing his frustration with the side allowing Brighton to attack consistently.
Combination of other factors
Whilst Rodgers has to take some of the blame for the slump that LCFC find themselves in. It goes without saying that this isn’t entirely on him. The Foxes have been ravaged with injuries and COVID outbreaks this season, forcing the boss to give players starts that normally wouldn’t even get a look in. The squad depth has well and truly been tested this season and it is worth taking into account when looking at results.
The injury to Fofana in preseason threw a major spanner in the works, while Leicester were already in the market for a new centre-back at the time, with Wes Morgan retiring at the end of last season. Fofana’s injury meant that it was crucial that the Foxes found themselves a new defender.
That player would be Jannik Vestergaard, who on paper was a decent signing, albeit on the expensive side of things. His height would make him a solid player to bring on late in the game to deal with crosses.
When he signed, it looked like he would be utilised in the same way that Morgan was in the twilight of his career. However, with Leicester’s two first-choice defenders injured it has meant that Vestergaard has been called upon and so far has yet to prove himself as a worthy signing for the Foxes.
What is probably the most frustrating thing about the Vestergaard signing is the fact that he cost £15 million. LCFC aren’t in the position where they can spend loads of money as Rodgers pointed out.
Those comments naturally sparked a reaction for the Blue Army, with many believing that he was purely trying to cover up what has been a poor season for the Foxes. It seemed a polar opposite of what Rodgers’ attitude with the club has been like since he took over, where he has lauded praise for the east Midlands side for disturbing the usual top six.
I was fine with him saying that we have overachieved, which we have to an extent when you look at the size of Leicester City as opposed to those around us on the table. However, his recent comments give off the feeling that he has almost given up and that we have peaked.
While the Vestergaard transfer took a hefty chunk out of the transfer budget and as a result the Foxes did not make a signing in January for the second successive year. Whether Rodgers’ comments were him making a subtle plea for more transfer funds, or if he has genuinely has given up hope of guiding Leicester to the top four, only he knows.
What does Brendan Rodgers need to do?
Leicester are all but out of the Champions League race, while even qualifying for the Europa League seems unlikely to come via league placings. As a result, if Rodgers wants to keep fans on his side, then he needs to go all out in the FA Cup and UEFA Conference League.
With the amount of injuries and COVID issues that the Foxes have faced this season, I am happy to write off this season, in the League at least if it means that Rodgers goes all out to try and win silverware in either of the competitions we are still in.
There’s no denying that the LCFC boss is a very good manager, after his first two full seasons at the club he guided Leicester to back-to-back fifth place finishes whilst also winning the FA Cup for the first time in the club’s history.
It is because of those achievements that I believe ‘BR’ has earned the right to be able to be given time to try and turn things around for the Foxes, that been said he is not immune to scrutiny and cannot afford to rest on his past achievements at the club.