Leicester Away
Been lots of discussion about it being a game of two halves so thought I would watch the game back write down my thoughts on how the game developed and what/if anything we did differently 2nd half to get ourselves back into the game.
Leicester’s Formation
Lets start here. Fotmob shows them as being set up in a 4-2-3-1 the same as us but this is far from what you see in game.
To start with Choudhury clearly was the nominal left back out of possession, with Pereira playing in midfield often as the most advanced midfielder when in possession. Like lots of the better teams they have a very fluid formation in and out of possession, but one thing was obvious they had decided to go very aggressive in their press of us 1st half especially.
Leicester in Possession.
From goal-kicks Leicester adopted a 3 - 3 - 4 approach. Choudhury instantly coming into the double pivot with Winks. The two centre backs split wide with Faes in left back spot and Justin pushed on slightly in the right back. Leaving Westerguard as the one central defender. They pushed Pereira very high almost into a front 4 & left KDH would looking to find space between the lines. What was noticibly different from the home leg was Travis tracked Pereira right back into our back line almost becoming a 3rd centre half. This left Clarke to be able to stay wider closer to Mavididi which I assume was tactical. In the home games Clarke has often narrowed leaving Morsy to screen in front of the 10 but leaving the wide man in acres of space (enough has been said on that topic!)
What it meant was there was a lot of space to get onto the ball in between our press and our back 4/5. See image below.
Going up against them we pressed in our usual way with Jackson leading the press & Chaplin / Harness narrow screening their deep double pivot. As mentioned Travis would be walked back into our back 4 by Pereira which was something I have not seen Morsy do when playing.
As Leicester build up pitch they would again change shape into a 3 - 4 - 3 with the midfield 4 being a box with Choudry/Winks deep lying and KDH/Pereira as 10s
This often gives them a numerical advantage especially if Harness is forced wider to close the full back as Wes doesnt really tuck in that narrow to make a 4 with Chaplin/Luongo/Travis.
Having said that for the first 15-20 mins I thought we coped pretty well and they didnt really create that much.
Ipswich in Possession
From our Goal kicks Leicester went super aggressive. But also had a plan to stop us jumping the press via our usual combination of using midfield pivot / centre half / fullback.
Leicester press in a 2 - 4 - 4 (See pic) and as the Athletic analysis points out instead of pressing from central which we try to encourage so we can jump the press around them, they pressed from their wide players, keeping Cannon & KDH as central screens on our double pivot.
This results in Leicester’s 2 centre halfs defending half the pitch each 1 v 1 on KJ & WB which is kind of insane but shows how much they wanted to stop us building through the pitch and taking the chance that if we hit it long they would deal with the 1v1. This is something that would never have happened 5/10 years ago. I take my hat off to defenders in todays game for what they are asked to do.
This press meant that we were never able to play out 1st half and get ourselves up the pitch in comfortable possession. Will come back to this in what changed 2nd half. But was a mixture of passing lanes being closed off and players not being brave enough.
When we did get slightly further up the pitch and try to bring Chaplin into the game they did something different to any other team I have seen. Instead of having a midfield player drop and screen Chaplin allowing him to get into pockets of space between midfield, full back and centre half, Faes stepped up into midfield to get really tight and aggressive with Chaplin. Number of examples where he wins the ball back in our half doing this. One extreme example where he presses in our final 3rd to win it back although he follows this up with a ridiculous dive in the box :(
Leicester’s Goal
I called this out on the night, for me the issue is lack of communication between Wolfy and Clarke. It feels incredibly harsh but watch the video and see the photo below for what I think they did wrong.
During build up Wolfy gets pulled into a wide area by Cannon, Mavididi drifts inside and Clarke does right thing to go inside and fill in the gap left by Wolfy. However as play develops Cannon drifts back inside and Mavididi pulls wide again. At this point as Clarke I would be telling Wolfy to pass Cannon into me and for him to stay wide as he is close enough to go shut Mavididi down. This doesnt happen and we end up with Clarke & Wolfy both on top of each other and Mavididi in acres of space. Travis then leaves Pereira to go close the ball which opens up the 1-2 around him, he should do better as gets caught following the ball with his eyes not following the run, and rest is history as they say..
These are small details but that communication between defenders is vital. I was lucky to play games with Tony Mowbray and John Wark whilst a young player at Town. My nan would have beaten them in a race by then but they constantly communicated and could see what was going to happen before anyone else did so they rarely got themselves into bad positions.
2nd Half
As mentioned I was really interested to see what changed 2nd half. First up, not a lot if I am honest.. If you look at shape in and out of possession there was not a huge difference in how the 2nd half started at least.
I think KM mentions in his post match interview they made a conscious decision if they were going to lose then lose playing with our identity. For me that was the biggest noticeable difference. There was a step up in our intensity off the ball pressing more aggressively higher up the pitch and in possession we were much braver on the ball.
One small thing I did notice a couple of times early in the 2nd half was Pereira didn’t push as high when they had possession and when he did Travis didnt always follow him right into our backline, as a result we were able to condense the pitch better allowing us to be more aggressive in our press and win the ball back. See image below.
In the example below its similar to how we played the home game with Clarke very narrow to pick up the advanced run and leaving his winger out wide.
The Substitutes
Watching back it became obvious to me that the biggest difference the subs made was their ability on the ball. Sarmiento, Hutchinson & Broadhead give you exceptional ability to receive the ball under pressure in tight spaces and to beat that first press.
Whilst Taylor gave us more composure on the ball and a more progressive passing ability than Travis did.
Example below how Sarmiento comes deep receives ball, keeps us moving and we work our way out.
In this example Hutchinson is closed down by Faes same as Chaplin but able to beat him and suddenly we are running at their backline.
This is why we ultimately got a stranglehold on the game. With them pressing so aggressively if you can beat that first press then you can get out and get at the opposition. If you can do that a few times teams will start to get a bit more cautious and that small change allows you to then play through the pitch like we want to.
1st half Travis, Harness, Luongo and to some degree Chaplin where not able to do that. The subs (probably alongside a natural drop in intensity of the game around 60 mins) all allowed us to retain possession better.
You then notice that their press changes. Whereas in the first half I spoke about them pressing from wide in a 2-4-4 near the end of the game they changed and on a few occassions we got exactly what we were looking for where they jump from the central screen allowing us to play around the first press and get out.. See clip below.
Being more clinical
It was also much more noticible that 2nd half we targeted Choudarys lack of defensive quality. We created a number of really good opportunities down the right hand side but just lack that final decision or execution that on another night could have led to more goals.
Clarke from Hladky. This is just a Poor final decision. The pass from Hladky is exception, but this is also an example of the superb attributes Clarke has to become a really exciting topclass modern fullback (Pace, Power, Attacking quality) but also highlights an area of the game he needs to improve on (and will do as he matures) with his final decision making / composure.
Look at Choudary in the final seconds before Clarke attempts to cross. He is shitting himself with Clarke running at him. He has backed off so far Clarke needs to recognise he just needs to keep driving at goal and he has an easy shot.
Another example from Clarkes from 3rd man run. Again fantastic full back play that was made possible by Hutchinson keeping the ball under pressure in their half so we can get further up the pitch. Its a great run from Clarke in behind Choudary again , a great pass from Luongo and just a poor final cross. For me he needs to pick someone out as he is crossing under no pressure.
Broadhead x2. Again I thought he was excellent when he came on, gave us something different up top and we all know he has a bullet of a shot on him, but there have been a number of examples over the past month or so when he has lacked composure in his final execution of shot or in this case decision not to pass that have cost us goals (Norwich, Coventry & these two) off the top of my head.
Again it feels like I am being harsh on him as I love him as a player and actually think he could do well in the 9 role especially in home games in the 2nd half the of season. But if he was more composed either of these two chances could have resulted in goals.
Summary
Enough of my ramblings, & congrats to anyone who got this far but in summary I think this shows that it doesnt take much of a drop off from us in terms of our performance levels for the better teams in this division to really cause us problems (West Brom / Leeds away) but also that if we stick to our identify like KM highlighted we have more than enough to match up to the best teams also. It wasn’t a tactical masterclass where KM had to make wholesale changes at HT to turn this game around it was about getting the boys to have a belief in ourselves on the ball, and getting back to a more aggressive intensity to win the ball back higher off it.
Final Word… If Carlsberg did loan players…..
Wow Hutchinson & Sarmiento have some ability. If anyone wants to witness the challenge our Academy has in producing kids capable of stepping into our first team then for me these two are prime examples of the levels required. For me Hutchinson has been a massive success. To be able to impact games at this level in his first season of “proper” football is so impressive. See how Hutchinson receives the ball on the halfway in the build up to the goal. He is so aware of everything around him. Sarmiento has this in his locker also.
Putting their technical capabilities aside the fact they have the self belief & confidence to play the way they do is something I admire too. I have a limited insight into what it takes to play at the highest level and trust me I have seen young players including myself play with a mindset that I don’t want to make any mistakes. These kids seem fearless, cant wait to see how far they both develop for however long they remain with us.