Leicester City’s season could be described as a tale of two halves, the Foxes are currently finding a resurgence in results — winning five of the last seven games in all competitions, after dropping as low as 13th in the Premier League in October, although the current “expected” position for Brendan Rodgers’ side is 18th. The relegation zone.
Thankfully, that’s not the reality we’re living in. Leicester is just inside the top half of the table (10th place) and can thank a slender 2-1 victory versus Brentford for that positioning. My description for the season could also describe every single fixture of the campaign for the Foxes, as there’s a clear tendency to perform in one of the two halves, and offer an abject display in the other. The game against the Bees is no exception.
The first tie (away at the Brentford Community Stadium) against the newly-promoted side was decided by a magnificent strike from Youri Tielemans, and a decisive counter-attack finished by James Maddison. People were quick to draw parallels with the game this weekend, as another Belgian provided a wonderful strike to initiate the lead. It was followed by another Maddison goal, albeit different circumstances this time out — a perfectly placed free-kick to beat David Raya.
As similar as the two games were, there are a few talking points from the narrow victory that I’d like to dissect during this article. Firstly, the usage of the double pivot — Youri Tielemans and Nampalys Mendy, in possession. In the basic structure, it was either a 4–3–3 or 4–2–3–1, with the double pivot mainly forming in the latter, as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall would join them in the three-man midfield of the 4–3–3.
Because of injuries, and perhaps fatigue with the starters, Rodgers wanted his full-backs to play high up the pitch — as there was a lack of winger profiles available in the matchday squad (because of injuries to Marc Albrighton and Ademola Lookman), to help the creation of chances for the Foxes. To enable their progressiveness, the double pivot would drop and play just ahead of the two centre-backs (Çağlar Söyüncü and Daniel Amartey), giving a secure platform for the full-backs to place themselves in advanced positions.
Without the pivot dropping, Leicester City would’ve been more exposed to transitions when there was a turnover of possession. Instead, they could camp in Brentford’s half and dictate the game — only for the first-half.
Throughout the second-half, Brentford controlled the game. The Foxes weren’t able to create this 2–2–5–1 structure (the formation that includes the double pivot just ahead of the centre-backs), as one of the key principles to it working during the first-half was Maddison. His inverting from the right-side overloaded the centre of the pitch and provided space for James Justin (right-back) to progress into.
Without possession, Maddison had to remain wide in the structure and worry about the marauding runs of Rico Henry (Brentford’s left-back). The idea was to suffocate, but it required a decent control of possession first, and Rodgers’ side sacrificed the ball too frequently in the second-half.
There was also excellent defensive aggression by the Foxes, not allowing the opponents to control the ball upon receiving it with their backs to goal. Timothy Castagne excelled at this on the defensive-left, while Söyüncü also dominated Ivan Toney centrally by negating his first-touch. During the first-half this added to LCFC’s control, as in the few instances the Bees escaped their half, they’d be stopped instantaneously. As previously iterated, this wasn’t the case in the second-half — the added athletic industry of Shannon Baptiste (in central-midfield) probably aided this, as the Foxes started to tire.
But, despite dropping the level of performance quite considerably for the second-half, Rodgers’ shift to a back five — which enabled Jonny Evans to get some minutes, eventually saw the game close out in a victory. The blueprint of adding defensive numbers still seems to be one that the Northern Irishman favours, at the time of the substitution the Foxes had a two-goal cushion — although, that didn’t last with the added pressure defensively. If the, incredibly unlikely, push for European places in the league is still on, ‘BR’ needs to understand why his team can run so hot and cold during a 90-minute period.
Contextually, the revolving door of injuries isn’t helping with consistency. Players are fielded out of position, alongside a new player every game, and also those that are consistent are struggling with fatigue. The squad size was increased ahead of this season, no big sales, and a couple of excellent pieces of business, all done to balance the life of multiple competitions — yet, injuries have forced Rodgers into experimental setups and benches full of U23 players. Judging them too harshly this season would be removing these contextual variables.