Leicester at the Break

a poorly constructed squad playing poorly save two stars

We are going to make reports over hopefully all 20 Premier League teams over the next week. Get everyone all educated, it helps me to do these to understand what teams do and what their players do, hope it does for you also.

Tale of the Tape

A Leicester game features essentially no high pressing, no counters and tons of touches in established possession. It features a lot of progression in not very dangerous areas.

Territory Maps

A map combining shot production with progression efficiency vs the average PL team.

Pass Clusters

Pretty telling about what kind of game Leicester play. A league low share of their passes end in the danger zone, they pass around at the back a ton.

Defensively they also turn opponents into ball-recycling, pretty dull to watch to be honest.

Attackers

It’s really kind of a one-man show in attack, as Maddison handles the ball an enormous amount for someone who plays so far forward and does it at a top-tier efficiency, despite playing on a team that generally doesn’t have top, top tier efficiency.

His numbers look like a Man City player really, the only other attackers with efficiency at this level and solid xg + xa numbers are City/Arsenal guys, Mitoma, Willian, Almiron, and Kulusevski. Really Willian is almost a creepily similar statistical profile

Willian v Maddison

xg/xa: .45 vs .47

Progression: 5.7 vs 5.6

Efficiency: .66 vs .6

Shot Buildups: 9.1 vs 9.3

Take-on rate: .07 vs .05

Pass/minute: .42 vs .46

Ball Loss Rate: .2 vs .2

Team Progress Rate: .26 vs .27

Team Shot Rate: .22 vs .22

The only real difference is Maddison takes a higher, lower quality shot volume and receives a bit more. It’s the same guy, just one with a receding afro and one covered in ridiculous tattoos.

Vardy looks completely washed up and shouldn’t play over Daka anymore.

Midfield

Dewsbury-Hall remains a bit of a luxury type player, more of a guy who is good at finding the space and making the final pass. He is not a guy great at link defense and attack, mediocre efficiency limits him there and his lack of defensive work makes it hard to stick him in the middle. He seems a bit limited by playing alongside Tielemans and Maddison, who do a lot of the things he does.

Soumare and Ndidi fit the destroyer type to a T, both pass so incredibly conservatively as to destroy most any attacking move, it’s all defense from those two. They combine for .01 xG and .02 xA while the team gets shots off 5% of the time after their touches.

Justin plays wide but also remains basically a defensive player, but not a particularly good defender. Losing Ricardo was a huge blow, Leicester’s other fullbacks are very mediocre while Ricardo was one of the best in the league pre the recent injury struggles.

Tielemans stands out, not quite as much as Maddison, but to a very large extent. The skill-set is wide and deep, his attacking ability is great and highly efficient. Not many attacks he would not slot into well.

Dennis Praet represents the backlog of bad players Leicester have, on presumably pretty high wages. He doesn’t help them but his transfer blocks another transfer of a player who might.

Defense

Luke Thomas plays as a wide “Center” back, not advancing, not receiving the ball, and then actually not progressing efficiently either. He adds little to nothing to Leicester’s attack and is another example of their large weakness out wide.

Amartey is completely lacking in duels win rate, while Faes was hyped when he first came but also lacks duel dominance and the passing ability of Evans and Amartey.

Goalie

Ward is near the bottom of PL keepers with -3.7 post shot xg saved. He is near the top at defensive actions outside his box per 90.

Pass Combos

Most Progression

Most Shot Buildups

Unsurprisingly it is the two standout players.

The Rundown

Leicester play an incredibly dull style that doesn’t really lead to their strengths being accentuated. They have 3 midfield playmakers who range from outstanding (Maddison/Tielemans) to good and hinting at more (Dewsbury-Hall) but yet play a style that sees the lowest share of passes ending in the Danger Zone. They play shackled ball in possession, seeing Evans, Ndidi, Soumare, Amartey and Faes endlessly pass back and forth, possibly due to the lack of quality wide players, possibly due to the lack of defensive mids with any offensive skill.

Justin, Thomas, Ndidi, Praet and Soumare are absolute offensive zeroes and that’s basically 30% of your non-CB minutes being evaporated by players who don’t attack.

Leicester without the ball are sort of a poor man’s mirror to their own attack. They slow opponents down without a high press, but opponents generate shots a bit quicker and turn their progression into more threat. The lack of offensive players does not translate to a shut-down defense.

Right now Tielemans and Maddison are keeping Leicester afloat, and afloat is looking like a semi-safe bottom half team. Injuries, like the one to Maddison now, or transfers make you very worried for the future of this club. There are not many prospects or players with above average or even average potential left outside of those two (Daka, Dewsbury-Hall and Castagne?).

It’s a poorly put together team playing a poor style of ball that does not tilt the odds in their favor.

Rest of Season

13% to be relegated

30% to finish top 10.

That seems a bit high to finish top 10 to me, their metrics look nowhere near average and it’s hard to see much more ceiling. Daka over Vardy maybe gets you closer but Maddison and Tielemans missing more minutes is almost a certainty.