What seemed like a bold new approach for Leicester City was just a quirk of the fixture against Aston Villa, Brendan Rodgers has admitted, with the manager not yet dispensing with his long-held gameplan. Opting for three forward-thinking midfielders felt like a deliberate tactical decision to get City playing more progressive passes, and getting the ball into the feet of the exciting front three more quickly. That’s why the pass completion was at season-low 71.8 per cent, because they were playing riskier balls earlier. Given the quality of attacking play, and the three points earned, it seemed like a tactic that had paid off. But, Rodgers has admitted it was not part of a plan, albeit he did not seek to tweak his team mid-game to try to correct their course.
Brendan Rodgers said: “It was the nature of the game. I’ve said it before, we give the ball away too cheaply. It’s something that will improve. It’s certainly not something that was created. We have improvements to make, it wasn’t a perfect performance. But without perfection, we still had the ability to fight, to run, to show quality moments in the game, and to show defensive resilience. It’s about getting yourself into the final third and then you make those risky passes. Everything in the game is built to get you through the pitch quickly. Sometimes we’ll give it away loosely, where we might be in a rush to score. That’s something that will improve with experience.” You have to defend well to win games. You can’t always concede goals and bank on scoring four. You’ve got to be able to win games 1-0 as well. At the same time I want the team to play exciting, attacking football. That is the ambition.”
Interestingly, the most passes and the highest pass completion percentage City have registered in a game this season was in the away fixture against this weekend’s opponents Tottenham, a match that ended in their heaviest loss of the season. In fact, City have taken just two from a possible 30 points in the 10 fixtures in which they completed the most passes.
