How Brendan Rodgers improved Leicester after disappointments

Brendan Rodgers decided upon a 3–4–1–2 formation, which played like a 5–3–2 out of possession. This was designed to cut every individual passing lane once Thiago Silva held the ball. Tuchel’s system of build-up involves utilising Silva as the central hub, but in the depth of the pitch, so he can identify all the passing angles and choose the correct one. The Foxes acknowledged this, so the 5–3–2 was implemented.

Jamie Vardy and Kelechi Iheanacho would sit on the two “spare” CBs, therefore forcing Thiago Silva to play forwards. His central-midfielders; N’golo Kante and Jorginho, were covered by any of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, James Maddison, or Nampalys Mendy, this forced the wing-backs of Chelsea to invert to match (numerically) the Foxes’ overload in the centre. Reece James was the more constant inverter, as Marcos Alonso is a better asset from out-wide.

For almost 95% of the first-half, Leicester efficiently covered all progressive lanes. It was fluid, sometimes Luke Thomas would press forwards to stop James’ freedom from RWB, Maddison would cut a central passing lane, and as I’ve already mentioned the CBs were aggressive to limit the spaces in the attacking third for Chelsea. Everyone reacted to the situation correctly, it was expertly coached. The one mistake in the setup was KDH overcommitting to a pass across the block into James, he capitalised faultlessly on this singular moment and found Alonso to equalise. It didn’t feel deserved, but in fairness, Maddison’s goal was a very low percentage scoring chance.