Leicester City’s circus-like defending vs Blackburn Rovers
Leicester City crashed out the FA Cup with a home defeat to Championship club Blackburn Rovers. Humiliating: here is how circus-like defending failed us.
The King Power club have failed to reach the next stages of the FA Cup despite what appeared on paper a fairly strong team, with minor alterations for players such as Daniel Amartey, Luke Thomas, Boubakary Soumare, and Daniel Iversen to get game time. Two of those were horrendous tonight.
It is no surprise that these players comprise the most important elements of defence, and no surprise the Foxes partook in an absolute clown act. They were not ready for a physical and technical team with momentum and backbone to show up.
Related Story. Leicester City 1-2 Blackburn Rovers: Foxes player ratings. light
What Leicester City’s numbers show
I felt severely let down by individual players, and the stats show it. Personally, I had felt the English left-back and Portuguese beast Ricardo Pereira deserved an opportunity to play. These were their stats.
According to Sofascore, Thomas made two interceptions and three clearances. This sounds alright, does it not? Oh, and of course he made zero successful ground duels out of five attempts, was dribbled past multiple times, had only a 64% pass accuracy, and Thomas’ positioning was shambolic. But, it was not Thomas that gave away the goal opportunities to be fair.
My favourite Pereira tried very hard. He put in challenges after challenges, tackles, after tackles, and would always attempt to rectify any mistake. He lost possession 15 times, and would at least try to win it back or prevent any dangerous opportunity coming from it: this would often not lead to anything beneficial for LCFC. City could have done with prime ‘Ricky P’.
Meanwhile, the Ghanaian centre-back is a positional nightmare. Giving the ball away for multiple opportunities on goal, with these poorly timed and poorly executed attempts to pass the ball. I guess at least Amartey tried something interesting. However, I can not excuse the defender’s lack of positional awareness; opting for Amartey over Harry Souttar or even Caglar Soyuncu in my opinion was a horrible decision.
dark. Next. Which of the 8 Foxes with expiring contracts should Leicester keep?
I think the key stat is possession lost. The King Power club would win the ball, give it away, and then fail to offer any defensive organisation in the turnover. Shambolic, circus-like, disorganised, and strangely poor. Those player ratings on Sofascore do not tell the whole story though, so here is an article from another Foxes of Leicester writer which is more realistic.