Leicester: Why we should temper our expectations

Let’s set the tone.

Claude Puel was finally sacked. Brendan Rodgers had been put at the helm. The negative atmosphere was gone from the team. Leicester were back to winning ways and looked as though nothing could stop them at times. The newly-signed Youri Tielemans was in fine form and Jamie Vardy was reborn – playing as energetically as an 18-year old fuelled on blue WKD and Red Bull. The good times were truly rolling again. Perhaps an audacious challenge for a European place were on the cards for next season?

Well as much as I bought into this narrative at first, I decided to look further into Leicester’s transformation over the last five months and came to the conclusion that we should probably temper our expectations for now. While it is exciting to see the strides Leicester are making in terms of the players they are being linked to and signing, there was similar discussion surrounding Everton last season. Below, I have listed a number of points that should be considered when placing such a high expectation on the former Premier League champions.

Results

Ultimately in football it is results that matter. It is widely held that Brendan Rodgers’ results with Leicester were far superior to that of his predecessor Claude Puel. When we look at GW29-38 when Rodgers was in charge, it certainly seems to look that way. However with a small sample size of ten games, it is hard to compare to the fifty six games Puel had with Leicester. By taking the fixtures that Rodgers’ Leicester played and comparing them to the same fixtures under Puel, I believe this gives a better view of things:

https://i.imgur.com/ouYwxDQ.png

Looking at this quite abstractly, it seems Puel had a terrible run of results in 2017/18 from the same set of fixtures. He was not in charge for their results against Huddersfield and Chelsea, so these cannot be used. Also Fulham were not in the Premier League so a like for like comparison is hard to draw from that season. Undoubtedly, Rodgers makes a mockery of Puel here. In 2018/19 however, there was an increase in point returns from similar fixtures for Puel. Ultimately though, Rodgers boasts a superior figure in terms of team goals scored along with having less goals conceded. But let us inspect the results in more detail.

Context of Results

Looking at the fixtures, without discrediting Rodgers’ hard work at the club, I think that the results have been given more praise than they deserve overall. If we go through them, I can begin to explain this. Firstly, Rodgers was admittedly unlucky during his managerial debut for Leicester, succumbing to defeat by a 92nd minute goal from Watford’s Andre Gray. Putting this misfortune aside, they hammered two relegated teams and played roughly on par to teams such as West Ham, Newcastle and Burnley (who they were very fortunate to beat having ten men). Despite a 3-0 victory over Arsenal, it was quite an open game up until the sending off of Ainsley Maitland-Niles. Only after this did Leicester take the lead and go on to win. Chelsea had nothing to play for on the final day, as 4th place was secured – they also had a Europa League final coming up so a draw wasn’t all that unexpected.

Overall, I’m not convinced we have seen a team capable of making a bid for Europe. Especially when 12 of their 17 points came in the five games after Rodgers’ appointment and trailed off to just 5 more points for the final five games of the season. On the whole, it seems Rodgers has enjoyed some short-term success with Leicester, but the true test will be over a full season. We have seen managers make an initial impact with Leicester only to regress in the long-term. That is not to take anything away from Rodgers as a manager, but there are a variety of factors that have aided this initial success. Below I have elaborated on this.

Honeymoon Period

Occasionally, we see at football clubs that there can be a stagnant atmosphere affecting the team mentality, which in turn affects the performance and results over time. Ultimately it is the manager who faces the brunt of the board and gets sacked in order to rectify this. A new manager comes in and more often than not we see an almost instant improvement from the team in terms of performance. For example, when Solskjaer took over for United we saw an incredible run of results throughout all competitions before the same problems eventually reared their ugly head again. Now I am by no means saying Leicester’s problems are akin to those of Man United. Leicester do not have any board problems (as far as I can see anyway) or egos that undermine the manager.

However, it  is clear there was a conflict between Puel and Vardy, but the full details we may never know. Such a rift between a talisman player and manager can have a huge impact on resuts. Nevertheless, a change in manager has shown a huge positive mental impact on the team as a whole. It is worth noting that generally see a regression to the mean of the team’s true ability as this honeymoon period wears off. We even saw this in Leicester’s case when Puel took over from Craig Shakespeare in the 2017/18 season. The team excelled from October to December and then regressed to mediocrity for the remainder of the season. So was Rodgers success simply down to luck or fortunate circumstances? Well no, that’s a little harsh.

Man Management and Tactics

In his managerial debut for Leicester, Rodgers saw his team fall to a late 2-1 defeat away to Watford. They opted to play a back three, a system that would never be played again for the remainder of the season. Quickly, they established a well-working 4-1-4-1 system and sometimes swapped to a 4-2-3-1 setup. The positions of James Maddison and Youri Tielemans changed slightly throughout various games, with the former being deployed in a wide position or the latter moving deeper into midfield when considered appropriate. Several players seemed to excel in FPL terms during this time, namely Pereira, Maddison, Tielemans and none other than Jamie Vardy. In ten games, Vardy produced nine goals and two assists, quickly becoming an essential asset during this time. To illustrate how much Rodgers’ benefitted Vardy, I have used a screenshot of a comparison of averages between Vardy under Puel and Vardy under Rodgers.

https://i.imgur.com/0URErJB.png

In addition to the revival of Jamie Vardy, the whole team saw an improvement to their general statistics. A simple comparison shows that attacking stats such as xG, xA, minutes per chance created, minutes per big chance created, shot accuracy and shot conversion rates all improved. Likewise their defensive stats also improved across the board such as xGC, minutes per chance conceded, minutes per big chance conceded, headed chances conceded and goal attempts conceded. While it may be a bit naive to put these changes simply down to high confidence and boosted team morale, I do think they make an impact. But as we have seen in the past, when Rodgers gets a team playing well with a few key players in the side, the results can be very productive in the right circumstances (e.g. Liverpool and Celtic).

Key Factors

In terms of Puel’s management, he had been widely criticised for his negative style of football that saw just three wins in his final fourteen games of the 2017/18 campaign. With the £60m sale of Riyad Mahrez there was a huge importance to reinvest the money wisely to help bring the squad back on track. Ultimately there was a mixed response with Maddison and Pereira being worthwhile assets, but perhaps overshadowed by the failures of Soyuncu and Ghezzal – the latter supposedly being Mahrez’ replacement. Another thing that was certainly a factor was the opinion held by the fans and the pressure put on him to improve things at the club, which he failed at throughout multiple competitions.

Another poor decision was Puel’s persistence with the 34-year old captain Wes Morgan. Even after two dismissals in quick succession that cost his team both games, Puel stuck by the centreback right until the end of January, by which the damage was well and truly done. From November to early December, Puel found himself without key defender Harry Maguire. While the team remained undefeated in the four games he was unavailable for, it must be noted that their draws to Burnley, Brighton and Fulham should go down as their most disappointing draws of the season – all of which came in quick succession. It was around this time that Jamie Vardy fell out of favour with Puel. The striker had seen a suspension earlier in the season during important fixtures, and was now finding himself at the end of a 5-game goal drought. Their relationship seemed damaged beyond repair with the striker temporarily being dropped from the team in early December.

No permanent signings came into the club in January except a loan move for Youri Tielemans from Monaco on deadline day. This was a decision made by the board, who at this point had probably decided they would sack Puel imminently. From the start of December until Rodgers’ appointment, the club saw just three wins from thirteen games, a run almost as poor as the end of the previous season. Tielemans started twice under Puel – against Man United and Tottenham, before going on to flourish under Rodgers. It is worth pointing out that during his time under Rodgers, Tielemans outperformed both his xG and xA by quite a distance. Given the small sample size, it remains to be seen if his returns were an anomaly afforded by a team in high form and if he can sustain these numbers long term.

Key Questions

In conclusion, I think we need to temper our expectations of Leicester, and allow the early fixtures to determine how things will pan out for them. There are also some key questions to consider that I have bullet pointed below:

• Is the honeymoon period over for Leicester and will we see regression in their performances and results?
• Rodgers dominated the SPL with Celtic, but when faced with a bigger test in Europe the team failed miserably. Could we see a similar failure with Leicester in the Premier League over the long term given their current stature?
• Can Leicester’s talisman Jamie Vardy continue to play at this level at the age of 32 when pace is his strength?
• Can Tielemans sustain his impressive numbers over the long term?
• Will the (imminent) sale of Harry Maguire see a significant decline to Leicester’s defensive ability and set piece threat?