Talking points from Leicester City’s 1-0 loss to Augsburg, evaluation of the show, the lack of imagination, Harry Winks, Patson Daka, and the dress rehearsal the following weekend.
After two weeks of the new season, Leicester City find themselves in a situation that many teams have experienced in the preseason. It’s one where followers wonder, “How worried should we be?” following the most recent subpar performance.
There’s an admission that this is pre-season and that it’s not realistic to expect City to play at full strength. Summer friendly matches should also be promising, although City’s 1-0 loss to Augsburg didn’t offer anything to get excited about. In the penultimate pre-season game, they fell short of many people’s expectations.
Let’s begin with the advantages. City is adhering to a well-defined strategy and framework. They maintained possession well even against a well-established midtable Bundesliga team. The majority of the players are fairly fit. In the end, the game was rather tight, and narrow margins ultimately determined the outcome, albeit an insignificant one.
The drawbacks are now apparent. Especially in the second half, City posed very little of a goalmouth danger, and Augsburg comfortably won. They were a tad disorganized throughout the transition after losing possession. At intersections and turns, they appeared exposed.
Steve Cooper identified areas for improvement and stated that his players “need to show more desire to score a goal.” It’s shocking to hear that the work was misinterpreted. An essential aspect of the game is the desire to score. It’s not anything that ought to require attention.
However, it’s also clear where Cooper is coming from. To move the ball into the last third, City is making sufficient effort. Once they arrive, there seems to be less motivation and tenacity. They’re not making the opposition put in a lot of effort to prevent the ball from entering their net. Everything is too sweet and too shy.
Cooper also identified winning more duels than they lost as a concern. Augsburg’s aggressiveness may have highlighted that vulnerability, but City undoubtedly needs to be a bit more aggressive at times. Even last season, when Enzo Maresca led his squad to victories, the Italian coach felt his team needed to have more guts.
However, Cooper’s analysis undoubtedly doesn’t allay supporters’ fears. These problems are fundamental to the game. It’s too close to the season to continue honing the fundamentals.
That makes two straight games in which City have lacked originality. Their attacks have been lacking that spark. What then are the problems?
Victor Kristiansen appeared to be out of step with the rest of the forward line, to start with. As the advanced full-back, he certainly possesses the energy to help the assault, but City’s attempts to get down his flank were unsuccessful.
He appeared eager to cross at the beginning, but his balls into the area barely registered as a threat. Rather, he attempted to communicate with Stephy Mavididi, but they were unable to reach a consensus. Ultimately, he would typically merely pass backwards to one of the center backs, Harry Winks.
To play complex football in games like this one, where the opposition brings numbers back, City needs their advanced full-back to be adept in confined spaces. The right person for the job is Ricardo Pereira. It’s simply not Kristiansen’s game; it’s not really a critique against him.
Another problem is that Mavididi is placing himself in more dangerous situations by stepping inside to make room for the attacking full-back. Up until now, he has performed admirably in that capacity, but Augsburg, a team with greater organization, shut him down. He’s used to going one-on-one with his full-back. It is much harder to navigate through crowded center locations.
Because City produced so little in the second quarter, there was even greater cause for concern. For the whole half, they chased the game and managed just one meaningful opportunity. Because of this deficiency in depth, Cooper has demanded fresh offensive recruits following each preseason game.
But City needs to remember that there were some good times. Bobby De Cordova-Reid moved well inside and outside the box, and City appeared more dangerous when Mavididi and Abdul Fatawu were able to get close to him.
However, there is a hint of giving up there. If City is to cause problems for Premier League defenses, they must demonstrate more.
Cooper has said he doesn’t want any “nailed-on starters” because he wants his players to have the pressure of needing to perform to keep their place. But as things stand, he does have a couple in his squad.
Harry Winks is one. It would be a huge surprise if he wasn’t lining up against his former club Tottenham in a fortnight’s time, emphasised by Cooper handing him the captain’s armband. There is no doubting Winks’ Premier League quality. But he needs help.
In the pre-season matches so far, Winks has mainly played alongside Boubakary Soumare and Wilfred Ndidi. With Soumare, the Frenchman and Winks occupied the same spaces, and with Winks quicker at getting into position to receive the ball from team-mates, it made Soumare anonymous. When Ndidi has played deeper, he’s tended to float, occupying a space between Winks and the four behind the striker.
It has left Winks playing as a single pivot quite often. That’s fine, until you come up against an opponent like Augsburg. Not only did they operate with a diamond midfield and so shut down the Centre of the park, they recognized Winks was the key man and blocked him out of the game.
Last term, when Ricardo moved from full-back to central midfield, Winks had a true partner. Both have the technical quality to work in tight areas and the tactical intelligence to make space for themselves. They didn’t get in each other’s way.
It meant City always had two options deep in midfield, and that gave the opposition more to think about. City have to make it more difficult for opponents to mark Winks out of the game, especially in games where they have a lot of the ball. Ndidi will help to protect the defence in matches where City are on the back foot, but if they’re going to control possession, they need a ball-player alongside Winks.
The problem, here, of course, is that there is only one Ricardo and he cannot be both a central midfielder and an advanced full-back. Cooper needs to decide where he is most needed.
One pre-season game remains and Jamie Vardy has played less than an hour of football over the summer. He is one-of-a-kind, and he can never be truly counted out, but it feels he is losing the race to be fully-fit in time to take on Tottenham. The likelihood of Patson Daka starting the opening game is growing.
And it will be Daka rather than Tom Cannon. It’s evident from his lack of minutes against Palermo and Augsburg that Cannon is down the pecking order. It does feel slightly unfair that he’s not been given a greater opportunity to show what he can do. He’s not had the chance to play alongside Mavididi, Fatawu, and City’s better creative players.
Daka outperformed Augsburg. Though his mobility in the box made him a more dangerous player and he didn’t drop as deep to link play, he never truly looked like he would score. However, as was already said, he lacked inventiveness as well.
For the previous ten years, backing up Vardy has been a challenging role for any striker. There are so many enormous shoes to fill that failure is a given. Even worse for Daka, City will begin the season with a striker leading the line who hasn’t scored a goal for the team in six months. This summer, Daka has become the face of the team’s lack of investment.
He will require the backing of the crowd if he is to start against the Spurs. Next week at Lens, a goal would also be very appreciated.
