Foxes of Leicester
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What does Leicester City’s future look like?

By Dominic Wells

Leicester City's King Power Stadium on May 11, 2022 in Leicester, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images)
Leicester City's King Power Stadium on May 11, 2022 in Leicester, England. (Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images) /
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Leicester City
Jamie Vardy of Leicester City celebrates with teammates Youri Tielemans, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall and Harvey Barnes with Tim Krul of Norwich City in the foreground (Photo by Joe Prior/Visionhaus via Getty Images) /

Let’s now highlight some of the weaknesses, there isn’t an abundance of pace, so people are quick to downplay the idea of Maddison as a winger. His consistency to drop into the depth of midfield to receive possession, that’s not inherently negative, but when fielded as the ‘No.10’, he vacates the connecting space for the attack to simply recycle possession upon reception, and he often struggles to choose the correct half-space to position himself to aid an attack. Aside from that, I think Maddison’s weaknesses are fairly insignificant—so, why have I mentioned these aspects of his profile?

When playing as a ‘winger’, Maddison mitigates the two major negatives of his game—his movement. With a smaller area to roam inside of, he can drift from the wing into his favoured #10 zone but doesn’t have the freedom to go wide-left, something I would consider a positive. The bigger the roaming area, the more chance of poor positioning. He also can’t drop deep to receive, as often, as when fielded on the right, it’s normally inside of a 4-3-3 structure, allowing three midfielders to create angles ahead of Maddison.

It’s not a coincidence that after a difficult first half for the Foxes, which I don’t think was a byproduct of the former Norwich City midfielder’s performance, a change of position enabled a massive improvement in output—scoring the third. It’s really important to state when he starts at RW, he will still play as a ten, just choosing the correct moments, fans need to understand this.

How is this all big picture? Well, currently, Leicester City is in the market for a right-winger (a left-footed one at that), therefore placing Maddison on the bench—in my hypothetical analysis that he’s better as an RW. But, without him centrally, there’s a requirement for a creative player, as Youri Tielemans—who looks set to be on his way anyway—and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall are both stronger as box-to-box midfielders (over being creative, I would suggest Tielemans actually thrives deeper than playing as a box-to-box).