Who’s to blame for Leicester relegation? Part 4: full backs

As the social media apologies move at a snail’s pace toward our Instagram and Twitter feeds, (come on Foxes – make the right move for once this season!) this relegation nightmare still shows no signs of clearing. So let’s do what nobody at Leicester City seems to be doing right now, discover the reasons for this shambles. The full-back position could well be where this whole mess started.

Ricardo Pereira – Games (11) –  Goals (1)

According to Brendan Rodgers his whole game plan for this season was hinged on the inverted fullbacks, key to that plan was the Portuguese hitman Ricardo Pereira. His marauding runs into spaces that would overload opposition full-backs sounded like a tasty prospect given his injury record over recent years.

Of course, he was typically injured after rupturing an achilles tendon only a week before the season started and ruled out for six months. Following Wesley Fofana’s horrific leg break a year earlier, you could be forgiven for thinking that the club may be cursed. Despite having Timothy Castagne available in that position, Rodgers abandoned his strategy and chopped and changed his team and backline causing chaos throughout the season.

When Ricardo did eventually return at the back end of a rare win over Tottenham Hotspur, it seemed like things were looking up. But it was a false dawn, Ricardo struggled to get into games and cause problems from an attacking sense. All confidence seemed to have dropped when he came back in, as defensive duties seemed to be Leicester City’s new focus, despite being absolutely woeful at it all season. Ironically in Brendan’s last game for the club, Ricardo scored a stunner from one of his marauding inverted full-back runs and still ended up on the losing team.

Brendan was probably smiling to himself at the end of that game, comfortable in the knowledge that he knew Ricardo’s importance had been missed all season, whilst simultaneously ignoring every single defensive failing of the team he had constructed. At the time of writing, Ricardo is one of the few players to apologise to the supporters for this season, which is very humble considering he played very little part in it in comparison to others. Without injuries Ricardo would be a strong full-back in any division, I hope it is with LCFC, but I wouldn’t count on it.