Is this the real reason for Leicester’s set-piece defending inadequacy?

Logically, Leicester City fans do not deserve the way they have been stripped of their growing confidence over and over again this season.

It is unsurprising and monotonous to ramble about the same things on loop. Yet the persistent issue of set-piece defending has made its unmissable return again during the dying minutes of the West Ham game on Sunday.

All was not lost for this underperforming Leicester City side when they hosted West Ham United for the final time this season. It was an entertaining game, where the Foxes maintained control and composure for the most part.

Some brilliant performance from Harvey Barnes saw a near-perfect delivery be rightfully placed at the back of the net into the second half, making things enjoyable at 2-1. All the King Power club had to do was hold on until the very end, which again didn’t materialize.

The Hammers earned a late equalizer at the 90+1′ through a Craig Dawson header from a corner. Though we can criticize the ill-effects of the faults associated with Leicester City’s man-marking, we cannot, however, deny the dodgy way the goal stood, despite hitting the arm of the goal-scorer.

Leicester City’s manager cites real reasons for the constant set-piece woes

Manager Brendan Rodgers, whose support staff has been unsuccessful in finding the solutions to their constant misery, has cited a lack of willpower with a lack of organization from his defenders. Tweaking around from zonal to a hybrid and back to man-marking has not turned things around for the East Midlanders. The impact has been marginal if you compare which one out of those has been worse.

"“Defending corners is about organization, but it’s primarily about wanting to put your head on it, that’s the reality of defending. You can go zonal, you can block, you can go man-to-man. In defending a corner, you have to have that will to head it. If not, you’ll suffer, and that’s unfortunately what has happened to us too often this season.”"

It is rather preposterous at this instance that there has been no improvement for the Foxes when out of the 41 goals they have conceded in the Premier League, 16 goals have occurred from set-piece shenanigans.

"“It’s something we’ll keep talking on, we’ll keep looking at, we’ll keep analyzing. We’ll get out of the rut that it is, and the anxiety that has built up around it. We have shown over enough games that we can defend them well. That was deflating to concede from a set-piece, when we were set up with good numbers and good height to deal with it.”"

The West Ham goal happened after Jannik Vestergaard came on as a substitute. Yes, the Danish did put up his best performance against Randers in the Conference League game last night, but his incompetent reading of the situation did help Dawson to find a way to strike misery.

"“We had numbers. Everyone was marked up. The guys were fine. He (Vestergaard) was to go in and be around that six-yard box. The guys had coped well with that, Daniel and Wilf, so there was no need to change. It was really then going back into the six-yard box.“For us to concede in that moment was very disappointing. We obviously made the changes to have that extra height in there and deal with that static position, so for them to get the header inside the six-yard box was bitterly disappointing.”-Brendan Rodgers via Leicester Mercury."