Leicester City’s club captain Kasper Schmeichel – along with many others at the club – suffered a very disappointing campaign last season.
Back-to-back fifth placed finishes for the East Midlands side as well as falling outside of European qualification seemed to be a significant step back. While there are many possible causes for this relative failure, anyone who watched LCFC throughout the 2021/22 season will point to one particular area in which the team were extremely poor in, and that was defending set-pieces.
Therefore, this now bodes the question of who is at fault for this glaring weakness in the side. Is it one of City’s most senior leaders and first-team goalkeeper Schmeichel? Or the defensive set-up that lies in front of him? Defending corners was the area in which Schmeichel and the defence most struggled throughout the duration of the 21/22, conceding from16 corners in the Premier League – an increase of nearly 80% from the year prior – any increase that large is a massive red flag and has rightly so raised questions of the captains role in this.
But, the Foxes also conceded from a corner in the final game of the season which saw Danny Ward in net. So that may be an indicator to how in fact it is the defensive set-up and not totally the fault of the City’s number one.
It was the running joke throughout the whole of the last campaign of how inept Leicester were at dealing with any corner kick. Especially in-swinging corners which in particular gave the City captain problems, due to his unwillingness and perhaps – as the season progressed – lack of confidence coming to claim the ball.
Throughout the last year Brendan Rodgers routinely switched defensive tactics when defending set-pieces, the Foxes started the majority of the first half of the season in a zonal-marking system, occasionally moving to a mixed marking system. Which is not uncommon and something that many teams in the Premier League do in fact use.
This choice of system and lack of use of a man-to-man alternative may have been due to the personnel that was available to Rodgers in this period. Wilfred Ndidi and Wesley Fofana the most notable of the absentees, as they are generally two of the sides best defensive and most aggressive headers of the ball. Which is why, when in a zone Ndidi is generally placed as the first line of defence on the front of the six-yard box.
However, due to the continued lack of success – and possibly LCFC fan induced pressure – Rodgers changed the system to man-to-man to try nullifying or reduce the number of goals and general pressure sustained from opposition corners. Was there much of a change? Slightly at the start, even if that change was simply instilling confidence into the side.
What must also be taken into account is that this change did also coincide with the return of Fofana and Jonny Evans. Something that the Leicester boss had spoken about up until that time, was not having the right personnel in place to carry out his wishes. But then the question must be posed to Rodgers, shouldn’t all the elite managers have a system in place where personnel should only make so much of a difference.
As everyone knows the goals conceded from corners and set-pieces did not stop there and LCFC looked just as susceptible closing out the seasons as they did at earlier points in the year. So, this now brings us all the way to the first preseason game of a new campaign, at home to the non-league side Notts County.
There was no Schmeichel in goal for either half, no senior defender carrying the baggage of last season’s defensive worries, other than Ricardo Pereira – who’s impact on defending corners is minimal due to the Portuguese’s size. But nonetheless, the Foxes still conceded two soft goals from set-pieces.
The first was especially poor and so elementary that again it poses the question of how much detailed work goes into defending these types of situations. As well as adapting when things go wrong, like the mistake when claiming the ball by Daniel Iversen for the first goal, despite having many bodies around the ball not a single LCFC player reacted quickly or anticipated any potential danger could arise from that situation.
The second goal again felt like Deja vu of what everyone saw last season. An in-swinging free-kick from the right by-line found the head of a completely unmarked Notts County player about five yards out in the centre of the goal. One thing to note is that both goals were conceded using two different marking systems, the first seemingly a mixed – zonal and man-to-man – and the second looked like more a zonal system. This again gives the indication that the Leicester boss is still trying to find the solution to this problem.
Rodgers spoke many times throughout the year about his defenders not being aggressive enough and winning their individual battles, which in some cases may be true. But, when the same thing continues to happen with such consistency regardless of personnel, it may be finally time to address the fact that the instructions given to the defence are simply not good enough and need to change.