Taking off Mendy proved a bad idea
FIVE TALKING POINTS FROM THE DEFEAT TO VILLA
BRENDAN Rodgers doesn’t like basketball. Or, at least, he doesn’t like it when a Leicester City match resembles basketball.
The manager often uses the sport to describe end-to-end games, and did so again for his assessment of Sunday night’s second half, in which Ross Barkley netted in the game’s key moment.
Rodgers doesn’t like ‘basketball’ matches because they’re chaotic and unpredictable, and he is building a team to control games.
In the first half, when proceedings weren’t quite so topsy-turvy, City were the better side, retaining their structure to snuff out Villa danger and also spot weaknesses in the visitors’ defence, threading passes forward.
There were few chances, but if any team was going to score, it was City.
As legs became tired, systems became sloppier, and the game went back-and-forth as the two teams searched for a winner.
Amid the chaos, Villa were better. In the final 20 minutes, it felt like City were pulling off last-ditch blocks and interceptions to keep the visitors at bay, while Villa were comfortable at the other end.
As a general rule, sides that usually have less control of matches benefit when a fixture becomes helter-skelter, as they are more accustomed to it.
Under Rodgers, City are not. But what didn’t help City’s cause was the withdrawal of Papy Mendy.
As the man guarding the back four, Mendy does not engage in ‘basketball’.
As the game becomes tumultuous around him, he is steadfast in his role.
Hamza Choudhury, his replacement, is the opposite.
While they are both billed as defensive midfielders, they are total opposites.
There is a square of the pitch that Mendy rarely ever leaves, while Choudhury could pop up anywhere, with the homegrown midfielder at his best when haring around, getting a toe in.
Choudhury was introduced to provide “more energy” in the midfield, which was not a bad idea. But bringing Mendy off was.
Because when James Maddison, Youri Tielemans, and Choudhury all pressed, there was a gaping hole in front of City’s back four from which Barkley could profit. If Tielemans had been withdrawn instead, City may not have had the cutting edge passes he provides, but they would have had Mendy defying the basketball-esque nature of the game, and may have prevented the winning goal.
Jamie Vardy was sat in the stands drinking Bovril, which is not where City would want him.
The number nine was out with a calf problem, and City failed to find the net in his absence.
It is easy to subscribe to the idea that City do not have a threat without him, but they created better chances against Villa than they did against West Ham, when he was leading the line.
What they miss is his ability to stretch defences, because Kelechi Iheanacho is not that man.
Although he is Vardy’s understudy, he does not play the same role.
Iheanacho is better as a support striker, someone to hold the ball up, link play, and slot through passes.
Leading the line by himself, he dropped deeper to receive the ball, and so City saw more of their passes reach Villa’s final third, but he did not really trouble Tyrone Mings or Ezri Konsa in forcing them to sprint back towards their own goal.
Iheanacho needed a partner, and someone with pace.
Could Dennis Praet have dropped out, with Harvey Barnes pushed into a central role and another winger brought in? Barnes’ speed would certainly have given the Villa centrebacks something to think about.
And it’s something Rodgers needs to think about ahead of Thursday, with Vardy still out.
City had a clear-out of their cupboard of forgotten signings this summer, metaphorically throwing out Bartosz Kapustka and Adrien Silva.
For Islam Slimani, the cobwebs were blown off and he was thrust back into the fold, playing the final 20 minutes as Rodgers tried a plan B with Iheanacho’s influence waning.
Slimani was unsurprisingly rusty. It was his first senior game since March and it showed. His touch was not sharp enough and his legs not yet able to reach top speed.
But there was a brief moment of promise when Ayoze Perez plonked a cross onto his head and he bulleted high into the empty Kop.
That’s what he provides that City don’t usually have.
If he is going to be involved, there is no point writing him off yet.
Monaco managed to get a combined 16 goals and assists out of him from 18 games, so if City play to his strengths, similarly effective results could be possible.
City supporters will get great joy from seeing Wesley Fofana in action, Rodgers said after the Frenchman’s impressive debut, but the overwhelming emotion among fans will have been one of relief.
Caglar Soyuncu is now out until 2021 and if that injury had occurred six months ago, it would have been devastating. Now, there will be a feeling that City can get by.
Fofana was everything he’d been described as, and more.
He was dominant in the air, winning more headers than any other player. He was alert to danger in the box, making more clearances than any other player, and more interceptions than any other City player. For tackles, he only ranked behind Perez.
But he was also disciplined, and was not caught out of position, while he was positive and intelligent in his passing. In short, he defied his inexperience.
And he will now get a run in the side that should aid his development even further.
“Leicester’s five best players all out injured: Pereira, Soyuncu, Ndidi, Maddison, and Vardy. Brutal. Could cost us the title.”
Gary Lineker’s pre-match tweet was tongue-in-cheek, but also made a salient point.
While it is debatable as to which five players form City’s best quintet, that handful are certainly up there.
How many other sides would do well without their five best players on the pitch?
Against a Villa side at full-strength, with momentum, and full of confidence after battering the champions 7-2, losing in the last minute is a frustrating result, rather than a worrying one.
Let’s hope that City’s injury problems have cleared up by mid-February, when they head across to Villa Park and hopefully show they are still the top dogs in the Midlands.