Like a fox roaming the chicken coup, Leicester City stalk their prey.
For the opening 30 minutes of each game, the Foxes stay muted and patient – with the aggregate scoreline for this opening third only 6-5 to the team with the third-highest goalscoring tally in the league. As the game progresses, however, the Foxes get hungry.
As the latter two-thirds of the game wane on, Leicester have accumulated an astonishing aggregate scoreline of 30-3 to nourish their hunger for goals – as they feast on teams to fuel their title charge. But how does Brendan Rodgers tactically rip apart the opposition and allow the goals to flood in during the latter stages of the game?
The Northern Irishman sends out his predators in a malleable 4-1-4-1 formation, with Jamie Vardy spearheading the attack as one of the few fixed pieces whilst the rest of the team – especially the lineal midfield four behind him – move in a rotational style to keep the opposition guessing.
The normally fluid and ambulant backline stay relatively stern to deflect any surging attacks, with the central cog of Wilfred Ndidi actively dispossessing players in the middle of the park in a sweeper role.
Then, as the clock strikes half-an-hour, Rodgers sends Leicester into overdrive – moulding into a 5-3-2 with the two wing-backs playing essentially as attacking wingers and Ndidi acting as the linchpin for the defence; cleaning up at the back whilst Çağlar Söyüncü and Jonny Evans roam forward.
Ayoze Pérez then moves alongside Vardy and Leicester work to entirely overload the opposition – birthing most attacks in the middle of the park and allowing Ricardo Pereira and Ben Chilwell to carry the ball up the flanks before playing it inside.
This is Brendan Rodgers’ tactical pièce de résistance. As teams press a subdued and rooted Leicester opposition, the team waits for the opposition to open themselves up – much like a boxer reading his opponent and waiting to slip a strike – before the Foxes hit them with a haymaker in attack.
This then-continuous offensive pressure leaves defenders with no time to tactically regroup; with Leicester aiming to kill the game off swiftly with Vardy’s clinicality and keeping their opponents on the back-foot for most of the game.
Brendan Rodgers may be one of the more forbearing and softer managers in the Premier League in terms of his character, but – as a tactician – he is as ruthless and as slick as an assassin.
