Alex Keble says Brendan Rodgers needs more praise for his tactical fusion of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola with his high-flying Leicester City side.
The revolution has been so absolute, so cleanly actualised, that Claude Puel’s plodding, wheezing football is already a distant memory. As recently as February this year the King Power seemed comatose, an existential ennui hanging so heavy over Leicester City one wondered if their 2016 title had permanently vaporised what forms the emotional core of any football club: aspiration, longing, hope.
The turnaround has been truly remarkable. In eight short months Brendan Rodgers has flipped the club’s tactical mantra and reinvigorated the players, taking the club from mid-table indifference to Champions League hopefuls, and although praise abounds in the media the true value of his success is under-appreciated. Rodgers has cut through the apathy, has helped Leicester rediscover meaning at a crucial juncture in the club’s history.
Essential to the speed of Leicester’s transition has been detailed, progressive tactics that form an easy-to-define overarching philosophy. At a time when the wealth divide limits the capacity to grow, clubs need an obvious vision, a way of being – the West Ham ‘Way’, the Arsenal ‘Way’ - to find purpose, and that’s exactly what Rodgers has achieved by dismantling Puel’s sideways passing and static formation in favour of a more raw, direct approach.
Put simply, Leicester press high and hard, placing emphasis on waves of attacking pressure. Rodgers wants to implement quick vertical passing into the final third, courageous overlapping full-backs, and clever movement between the lines to seize control of midfield. What’s most encouraging for Leicester fans is that, despite sitting third in the table with a two-points-per-game average, a lot of the details of Rodgers' tactics are yet to click into place.
But we are seeing the tentative beginnings of what could be called a fusion of Jurgen Klopp and Pep Guardiola tactics.
A fusion of Klopp and Pep
Rodgers emulates the Klopp methodology in several key ways. Rather than suffocate through repetition Leicester try to pass quickly through the lines vertically, aiming to catch out the opposition before they can set themselves into a defensive shell. The best example of this working was last week’s 9-0 win against Southampton, whose red card and subsequent rapid formation changes left them scrambling – handing Leicester the chance to drive forward with quick one-twos around the box. It was like watching Klopp’s Liverpool at their peak.
This helps explain why Rodgers has targeted assertive, head-up footballers like Youri Tielemans and Ayoze Perez, two buzzing players always on the lookout for a defence-splitting pass or energetic give-and-go. But it also explains why the full-backs Ben Chilwell and Ricardo Pereira are so important.
As at Liverpool, frantic possession football is inevitably narrow in focus; wingers need to cut infield to create more short-passing options in the number ten space – the most dangerous area of the pitch – which in turn sucks the opposition inwards too. To avoid over-congestion, the full-backs then fly on into these unoccupied spaces, either pulling the defence back out (so the likes of James Maddison have more room) or using their freedom to swing crosses into the box.
The Pep Guardiola influence is found in midfield. Whereas Liverpool generally deploy three workmanlike midfielders, Man City show greater variety in their play with tandem number eights – or false eights - given how David Silva and Kevin de Bruyne alternately shuttle up and down into half-ten zones. Rodgers’ use of Maddison and Tielemans closely follows this innovation (used most prominently by Guardiola in the centurion 2018/19 campaign), with the superb Wilfried Ndidi capably covering the width of the pitch behind them just as Fernandinho does for City.
Foxes flowing style of play
It’s this latter feature that allows Leicester to constantly push forward; Maddison and Tielemans shuttle across to make themselves available for a vertical pass into feet, then quickly turn and feed Jamie Vardy in behind the defence. Should that avenue be shut off, Leicester can start to move the ball around the outside to get those aggressive full-backs going. It’s a tactical crossover of Klopp and Guardiola that Rodgers deserves more credit for creating.
Not that it works all the time. In fact, critics would point to xG figures that put Leicester seventh in an xPoints table, to an oddly cautious performance at Old Trafford, and to a stop-start playing style that has seen points dropped against Wolves. But this is very much a work in progress and, counter-intuitively, their remaining flaws are further cause for optimism: that Rodgers has somewhat paradoxically imprinted a tactical philosophy on Leicester even while the tactics stall speaks to the clarity of the vision - as well as the sense of internal unity.
A unified approach is, of course, something that cannot be said of Tottenham, Man Utd, or Arsenal on current form, Leicester’s rivals for a place in next season’s Champions League. All three are clambering into the depths of apathy just as Leicester emerge, the cause of their weariness ranging from outright confusion amid a stuttering tactical transition (Arsenal), to out-dated tactics focused on nothing but speed (Man Utd), to emotional exhaustion caused by a lack of transfer activity (Spurs).
By contrast, Leicester are focused and refreshed thanks to their manager’s implementation of a strategy that is modern, bold, and – crucially – transparent. Eight months ago Leicester had no vision, no path to follow as they stumbled through a comedown with no discernible end. Now, there is light; energy; a future. Rodgers is building something special, and the fans can sense it. It’s a feeling they’ve known before.