Thoughts on why Slimani must play.

[vanity]

I admit, I am somewhat new to football, though I played for a decade growing up, so I am not a complete novice. But I am an avid sports fan in general, and some concepts are transferable between sports.

 

I watch a lot of Steph Curry, the Dubs being my local NBA team. There is a concept that has become popular in NBA parlance, "gravity." It describes the behavior of defenders when they are facing a particularly potent scorer. They tend to lean towards him, they focus on stopping him, and when they do that, other things open up, as defenders are pulled towards the threat rather than playing their man honestly.

 

I know people are frustrated with Slimani, but he is absolutely critical to the attack because he has gravity. Defenders are wary of the ball in the air, and because they are so aware of Slim, they stick just a step or two closer to him, and that creates small opportunities, cracks in the defense, and lanes to open up for players like Gray, Chilwell, Mahrez (sometimes) and others to attack. It is a subtle thing, but we have much better opportunities when Slim is in the game, and he will start scoring. He needs to keep playing.

 

Contrast that with Vardy, he doesn't add anything right now. He can still be very useful, but he cannot lead the attack at this point. It is easy to argue about why he is so lackluster, why his partnership with Mahrez is so ineffective. But it doesn't matter at the moment, all that matters is he is not a threat to score whatever the reason, he is easily taken out of the game, he is clearly pressing, and he needs to sit for a bit. Arguing about the why is just not important.

 

Further, when Vardy is in, he is the focus of our attack, and that results in a lot of gifted possession to the other side. When Vardy is not in and we have some of the younger players in, there is much more possession-oriented attack, pushing up the sides and sometimes even scoring some goals (!). It is almost a mental handicap, this reliance on Vardy (and mahrez if we are honest). Sitting him serves a dual purpose. First, it forces the team to craft a more capable attack, with much more emphasis on targeting Slim in the air, which, even if it fails, good things happen when you drop the ball in the box. Second, it is a bit of a shake-up, which the team needs.

 

Speaking of Mahrez, his gravity is significant at the moment. He is drawing multiple defenders whenever he touches the ball, and it is effectively a bottleneck on the attack bc he doesn't really have room to provide the sort of tidy service he did last season. Sometimes you have to take what the defense gives you, and if teams are going to focus multiple defenders on Mahrez when he has the ball, Mahrez needs to avoid his habit of moving to the middle and STAY OUT WIDE so as to further space the defense. Mahrez obviously needs to keep playing, but he cannot be relied on to provide service. With him spaced out on the right, with Slim up top, that leaves the left for Gray and others more open than when Vardy plays. We saw Gray attacking and having some quality runs on the left hand side in the 2nd half as a consequence of the gravity of Slim and Mahrez which opened things up for him. He and Chilwell will have some real opportunities on the left if we play them together.

 

Leicester can get out of this, we all know there is a lot of football left. But I think CR has to focus the team on the idea of attacking without Mahrez and Vardy. If Mahrez is assigned to keep stressing the defense on the right, and we focus on the left with Gray and Chilwell attacking, and we make certain Ndidi and Amartey are on the pitch, the team can start scoring some goals at least. We need some new blood out there, the heroes of last season have been drained of their confidence, but the young players are ready to provide a bit of that.

[foxfanazer]

Kill me now!

[ZeGuy]

Good read. Thank you.