Leicester City versus Everton Tactical Analysis

[StriderHiryu]

 

 

It finished 1-1 at a rain-soaked King Power on Saturday. For those of you that went to the game, I salute you!

 

This was a HUGE game for us, and one that come the end of the season could determine our fate. We got a point, but for me it feels like 2 dropped. However, looking at the stats, Everton posed more of a goal threat and despite having more of the ball and out tackling and out passing our opponents, this is 5 games out of 5 in the Premier League where the underlying data suggests that we were not as good as our opponents.

 

 

^ Sofa Score provides ratings for all of the players. These should be taken with a huge grain of salt as they use an automatic algorithm, however, Mavididi being our best player, and McNeil and Ndiaye starring for Everton is certainly in line with the eye test. For me the above graphic further cements what a wasted opportunity this game was. Everton have the oldest squad in the league, and had to play Ashey Young (40 years old!) and James Garner as full backs. They had so many injuries they could not fill their bench and had two keepers to make up sub numbers.

 

 

^ Just to prove my point, look how many players were either missing or nursing an injury. This was a team that was there to be beaten.

 

 

^ The Attack Momentum bar shows that we really took it to Everton for most of the second half. I don't think it's fair to say they were hanging on, but we definitely looked the most likely to score. It's a shame that we couldn't start the game this way, and for me even worse that no subs were made at half time, given the obvious sub was the reason why we got back into it, Buonanotte for El Khanouss.

 

 

^ El Khanouss was the one change we made to the starting line-up and a player I was super excited to see play. Sadly he did not have a great game, but I want to go on the record and say that any player from a foreign league is unlikely to hit the ground running, especially without a preseason. For me he 100% needs to start in the cup game midweek, even if he was poor today.

 

 

^ One of his big issues was the positions he took up. He drifted too deep and too far to the left on too many occasions, reducing his effectiveness. I think this is muscle memory from his time at Genk, where he got involved in the build up frequently.

 

 

^ This is where I WANT to see BEK play. Here he is a good distance away from Mavididi, is high up the pitch and can get involved with the attack.

 

 

^ But too often he got into sub-par positions. Here he is not offering a good passing outlet, and worse if Mavididi received the ball and spun, he would be in Stephy's way!

 

 

^ This is KDH and Mavididi in the early part of last season all over again! They are standing in each other's shadows! Did they watch Gareth Southgate's England?

 

 

^ Compare BEK's position to Kristiansen. I want to see the Moroccan be the box crasher and get invovled. Instead he is sitting back with Winks and Ndidi and staying our of the action.

 

^Overall, he struggled to get involved in today's game.

 

 

 

^ Next I want to focus on James Justin, who has started to feature a lot more in the offensive phase of the game for us in the last two games. In fact, it now seems like we his more of the attacking fullback than Kristiansen.

 

 

^ Here we see our general build-up shape in the first half. Ayew would invert from the wing and in the vacated space, JJ would push on to become a winger in the offensive phase.

 

 

^ Similar to last season, we would try and find our wide players by switching the ball to them / going long. Faes was good at this last season, and has been doing this for us more and more as the season has continued.

 

 

^ JJ puts in a half decent cross, and did this a few times. However, I can't help but think how much more effective this would be if it was Ricardo instead...

 

 

 

^ Everton signed Ndiaye in the summer and because JJ pushed up, it meant he had more time than most to get the ball and drive with it. And you have to say, he had a great game.

 

 

^ He's 1 on 1 versus Justin here and after playing a 1-2 leaves him for dead. (NOTE: Replace with GIF later)

 

 

^ Despite being surrounded by players, he engineers an opening and finishes to make it 1-0, and at this point in the game, it's no more than Everton deserved. We had struggled to get going, had made a few unforced errors, and couldn't connect passes together.

 

 

^ Cooper has tried to establish his own system on the team this season, but I don't think it's working too well. There are too many occasions where players are standing in awkward positions, or when we succesfully transition, we aren't effective in our attack because of the positions we are taking up.

 

 

^ It's possible that in the above picture, the players are in the positions that Cooper wants them to be. But I think that strucuturally this has many issues that would leave us in big trouble on a turnover, and in this case, even though we progress the ball, lead to a suboptimal attacking situation.

 

 

^ Following the above sequence, Ayew receives the ball and drives forwards. But because he has inverted heavily, it means that in this attack, there is a lack of a wide man to find. Compare this to last season where we would attack with 5 players, the two wingers, two box crashers and the striker. If there was a wide man supporting here, it's an easy forward pass into acres of space and a great opportunity. But we don't play like that anymore.

 

 

^ Ndidi changed back to be more of a build up player today instead of a box crasher. He had a good game, despite lacking somewhat in the offensive phase.

 

 

^ JJ pushed up, meaning he's out of position in transition after a turnover. Ndidi needs to come across and help him out.

 

 

And that's just what he does. Winning the ball back and giving us an offensive transition.

 

 

^ Ndidi supposedly "has the touch of a donkey." But does he? He's much better than people give him credit for. He's no Kevin De Bruyne, but I think he has overall been our best player this season, and is the top assist provider for the team.

 

 

^ But I can't defend him every time. Here, the less said the better. But here I also want to point out that when the team has players like Kristiansen and Ayew, you might be better at winning duels, but you lack quality in the final third. I don't think either should be starting for us in games where we are expected to attack and go for it.

 

 

^ Our underlying data stinks. It suggests we have acutally outperformed our expected results because of chances created and given up. This is scary to see.

 

 

 

^ We've just had a stinking first half and been comfortably second best. We'll obviously make a few subs at half time and get into Everton straight from kick-off right? Wrong! We leave it to minute 55 to make the obvious sub and bring on Buonanotte for the struggling Khanouss.

 

 

^ And we immediately improve. Facundo takes up the right positions, facillitating build-up and box-crashing where appropriate. Mavididi now has space to run into, and changes the game.

 

 

^ Ndidi now starts to attack and push up much higher he and Facundo combine regularly to drag the whole team furhter up the field.

 

 

^ The entire system starts to work. Faes can now pick up the ball and switch the ball out to find Mavididi free.

 

 

^ How do we get the best out of Mavididi? We isolate a full back 1v1 against him. In his current form, Mavididi can put them on toast and cause havoc.

 

 

^ From this sequence the ball finds it's way to Ndidi. Sadly he lacks the killer pass, but there's nothing wrong with this move. This is the sort of sequence and play we need to see us do more often!

 

 

^ The change of shape unleashes Mavidi. Not only does the goal come from him, but he's responsible for almost all our best moments.

 

 

^ Mavididi driving at Garner and causing him all sorts of problems.

 

 

^ Garner goes into the book. He simply can't handle Stephy.

 

 

^ More great work from Mavididi from a corner. Our set piece coach is putting in work!

 

 

^ Ndidi involved (again) with winning physical duels to get us a goal. Scoring off a set piece again, good to see.

 

 

 

^ So we get back to 1-1 with 20 minutes to play. Surely we push on for the winner right? We make lots of attacking subs, use the bench and go for it!? Erm...

 

 

^ In total we made just 3 subs in the match. A gassed Vardy removed on 83, and our best player subbed off at 90 for Fatawu. That's right despite one of our wingers having a booked full back on toast, we take him off. We keep on Ayew, even though Fatwu cuts in on his left foot, and do this on the 90th minute. Awful, awful subs.

 

 

 

^ Here are my overall thoughts from the game.

 

 

^ Shout outs to these 3 players, who I think had strong games.

 

 

 

^ Crazily though we dropped points, we stay in the same position, 15th. Wolves are the suprise team at the bottom and might be the first team to change their manager. The longer you leave a manager change, the fewer good options there are that available...

 

 

^ I am not Cooper's biggest fan. We are currently NOT in the relegation zone, which is a good thing. However, if that PSR penalty wasn't avoided, we would not be looking too good right now. The above are facts from this season, and for me make grim reading.

 

 

^ In my opinion these are the best aspects of our play this season. They are actually the same as last season, though I feel we are less gooat them.

 

 

^ So how do we fix things? If it was down to me, I would go back to the same system as last season. You could have Ricardo in here as an inverted fullback, or get Vestergaard back into the team. But I want to see BOTH wingers come into the team, or at least two wide players, and drop the supporting fullback nonsense.

 

 

^ If we have to use Cooper's system, then get Ricardo into that team and drop Kristiansen. He puts in maybe two left crosses a game, we won't miss much. Not playing Ricardo feels like a decision on the same level as dropping Vardy for Demarai Gray, or dropping Alan Shearer when in a relegation battle.

 

Hope you enjoyed the write-up and would appreicate liking, commenting, subscribing and all that jazz on the video above!

 

Next week is a nice easy game at... Arsenal

 

 

[CPepFox]

Another great read 

[Dahnsouff]

Fascinating stuff @StriderHiryu  

[wardyfox86]

Once again, you've put more thought into the tactical analysis than Cooper did in his tactical preparation 

 

We can only hope he reads.

Edited 22 September 2024 by wardyfox86

[foxfanazer]

We had tactics?

[Pita]

Another enjoyable read please send a copy to cooper he might learn something 

[Product of 84]

Very, very good analysis. 

 

Fixing it shouldn't be as tricky as Cooper is making it. What I can't understand is we made the Winks, Skipp, Ndidi midfield work against Palace. The obvious thing to do is to keep that spine. Then you play Mavididi and Fatawu. 

 

Later in games you switch Ndidi and Vardy for one of the new 10s and Édouard. If winning you can pull a winger for Ayew and Reid. If chasing the game you sacrifice a full back. 

 

My fear is Cooper will stubbornly play Ayew because he is the boss. I've have no problems with this if we didn't have Fatawu and a strong midfield spine (Palace). The full backs need to sit and defend with Winks. 

 

Raneri worked this out. I can see parallels. 

[CrazyKopCorner]

31 minutes ago, foxfanazer said:

We had tactics?

Next they'll be telling us they train all week in the pursuit of excellence. 

[fox_favourite]

Love your analysis! 

[foxfanazer]

Give it Strider til the end of the season 

[RumbleFox]

My only input is can you make yourself bigger in the videos and the content smaller? #absolutedreamboat

[Iwebema]

6 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Our underlying data stinks. It suggests we have acutally outperformed our expected results because of chances created and given up. This is scary to see.

As always fabulous work really enjoy reading the breakdowns!

 

This particular bit is the concern, we are extremely efficient in the small windows we play well, that will regress as its impossible to maintain all season. Playing poorly and just about getting away with it and we still dont have a win....feels like the worst is yet to come, and this is the honeymoon period...we are lucky to have Mads in goal who has kept us in games. 

 

We can't move cooper on quick enough imo, but I think some will need to see that regression play out before realising it.

[beepee1984]

Great Analysis again. However you mention the fact we had momentum in the 2nd half without actually looking like an attacking threat and failed to use our subs again, but like Spurs the game was only not out of sight at this point because of the oppositions poor finishing and in fact it turned out to be a lucky point

 

We knew Everton would be struggling at Full Back so why we did not start Fatawu instead of Ayew - only Cooper will know (add that to the list with tactics, Ricci superglued to a bench and sending Vestegaard back to the naughty step)

[StriderHiryu]

10 minutes ago, beepee1984 said:

Great Analysis again. However you mention the fact we had momentum in the 2nd half without actually looking like an attacking threat and failed to use our subs again, but like Spurs the game was only not out of sight at this point because of the oppositions poor finishing and in fact it turned out to be a lucky point

 

We knew Everton would be struggling at Full Back so why we did not start Fatawu instead of Ayew - only Cooper will know (add that to the list with tactics, Ricci superglued to a bench and sending Vestegaard back to the naughty step)

Yep fair point. This video already ran to an hour, but for sure, Calvert-Lewin had a fantastic opportunity to win the game for Everton which I glossed over!

[Tom12345]

Great work as always, but I like to point out that BEK being somewhat ineffective as you said and him having to drop deep is actually a symptom of what we have been discussing previously. Ndidi. Ndidi is simply not a good build up player - Skipp is so much better in this regard. As a result the left mid often has a hole to fill which is why BEK felt he needed to drop back. But it means he is not higher up as he should be. Despite Ndidi playing ok, this weakness of his cannot be overstated. He makes Winks and the left side of midfield much less effective, but it is easy to focus on Winks, BEK and those around Ndidi. His weakness has already been well said and demonstrated in the past so there is no need to repeat here.

 

Ndidi, if he is to be used, can only be used as an AM.

 

 

[Muzzy_no7]

Absolutely embarrassing.

 

They had a CM at RB.

 

A pensioner at LB.

 

And we didn’t have a go.

 

PooperOUT

[Paninistickers]

Might be worth a thread in its own, but what is our strongest starting line up? We all seem to be adamant that Cooper is wrong. But I doubt we all consider others' versions correct either. I think my 'strongest', balanced line up wouldn't have many takers tbh; 

 

Mads 

 

JJ or Ricky (dependent on form) 

VK

Faes or Vesty (again on depends form and oppo) 

Okoli 

 

Winks and Skipp

 

Abdul, Wilf, Mavididi 

 

Buonnotte as a false 9

 

....McAteer, Hamza, Ayew, Vards, Iversen, Bilal plus 2 of above on bench 

 

[StriderHiryu]

4 hours ago, Tom12345 said:

Great work as always, but I like to point out that BEK being somewhat ineffective as you said and him having to drop deep is actually a symptom of what we have been discussing previously. Ndidi. Ndidi is simply not a good build up player - Skipp is so much better in this regard. As a result the left mid often has a hole to fill which is why BEK felt he needed to drop back. But it means he is not higher up as he should be. Despite Ndidi playing ok, this weakness of his cannot be overstated. He makes Winks and the left side of midfield much less effective, but it is easy to focus on Winks, BEK and those around Ndidi. His weakness has already been well said and demonstrated in the past so there is no need to repeat here.

 

Ndidi, if he is to be used, can only be used as an AM.

 

 

Fair points. Cooper is trying to use the second CDM next to Winks in a hybrid role, and not just as someone who is next to Winks throughout the game. IMO this is one reason why Winks has not looked as good this season. Maresca use to do this at times too, but he did it against teams that parked the bus like Preston, where he asked Ricardo to push up to become a third 8. For what it's worth, I agree that Ndidi is better when he focuses on just box crashing.

 

3 hours ago, Muzzy_no7 said:

Absolutely embarrassing.

 

They had a CM at RB.

 

A pensioner at LB.

 

And we didn’t have a go.

 

PooperOUT

You genuinely couldn't ask for a team to be in more shambles than Everton were / are. A confident manager goes for that game, beats them by 3 or 4 and gets their manager sacked.

 

3 hours ago, Paninistickers said:

Might be worth a thread in its own, but what is our strongest starting line up? We all seem to be adamant that Cooper is wrong. But I doubt we all consider others' versions correct either. I think my 'strongest', balanced line up wouldn't have many takers tbh; 

 

Mads 

 

JJ or Ricky (dependent on form) 

VK

Faes or Vesty (again on depends form and oppo) 

Okoli 

 

Winks and Skipp

 

Abdul, Wilf, Mavididi 

 

Buonnotte as a false 9

 

....McAteer, Hamza, Ayew, Vards, Iversen, Bilal plus 2 of above on bench 

 

Yeah could be worth a thread on it's own. For me the key is that Kristiansen should not be starting, Ricardo should come in, and one of Fatawu or Buonanotte (or both) should be in the team without taking out Mavididi.

 

There is a lot of frustration among the fans that the bench at times looks stronger than the starting XI!

[CUJimmy]

8 hours ago, StriderHiryu said:

Yep fair point. This video already ran to an hour, but for sure, Calvert-Lewin had a fantastic opportunity to win the game for Everton which I glossed over!

I’m not sure he did much wrong to be honest; we should give Mads credit for an outstanding save.

[sdb]

Not gonna lie, I was expecting a blank post. 

 

Will happily give it a read though because I spent 90 mins absolutely lost on what our approach was 

[FoxTimmy2]

Thank you for another quality analysis. @StriderHiryu

"It's possible that in the above picture, the players are in the positions that Cooper wants them to be. But I think that strucuturally this has many issues that would leave us in big trouble on a turnover, and in this case, even though we progress the ball, lead to a suboptimal attacking situation."

 

You don’t think you might be over-analysing this? It seems like you're trying to impose causality on the mindless mess that is Cooper-ball. I’ve yet to see any clear structure or consistency, just a mess of (largely poor) reactive decisions without any real cohesion.

[sdb]

Really interesting read but not sure it identifies how we actually approached, or planned to approach, the game? I just can't see a style or philosophy at all.

 

Copper seems to make poor decisions before and during games. The only glimpses of positivity we get are when a player seems to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and we show a bit of fight. But then the manager quickly sees to that by pulling whoever looks most dangerous.

[StriderHiryu]

5 minutes ago, FoxTimmy2 said:

Thank you for another quality analysis. @StriderHiryu

"It's possible that in the above picture, the players are in the positions that Cooper wants them to be. But I think that strucuturally this has many issues that would leave us in big trouble on a turnover, and in this case, even though we progress the ball, lead to a suboptimal attacking situation."

 

You don’t think you might be over-analysing this? It seems like you're trying to impose causality on the mindless mess that is Cooper-ball. I’ve yet to see any clear structure or consistency, just a mess of (largely poor) reactive decisions without any real cohesion.

It's definitely possible that I'm over analysing it! I saw a quote recently saying that in the football analytics industry people are spending millions of pounds to essentially find out the same thing "the closer to goal you shoot the ball, the more likely it is to go in!"

 

Trying to be objective, my concern is that the system Cooper is trying to implement is inherently flawed in certain aspects of the game. That can happen to any system and any manager, see how the 442 is basically dead, or how Conte's 343 got figured out pretty badly during his Spurs reign (though it's not doing badly at all at Napoli).

 

My two biggest concerns are:

- In build-up, the two CDM's don't always play next to one another, making it easier IMO to disrupt us when starting attacks.

- Our fullbacks pushing up to support make us more vulnerable than last season. We've already conceded 3 goals from the right hand side when JJ has pushed up at the wrong time.

 

From a structural viewpoint, I think these need to be fixed.

[StriderHiryu]

3 minutes ago, sdb said:

Really interesting read but not sure it identifies how we actually approached, or planned to approach, the game? I just can't see a style or philosophy at all.

 

Copper seems to make poor decisions before and during games. The only glimpses of positivity we get are when a player seems to grab the game by the scruff of the neck and we show a bit of fight. But then the manager quickly sees to that by pulling whoever looks most dangerous.

This is from the Fulham game, but is relevant to the Everton one. We start in a 4231, but when we attack, a full back pushes up to support the attack:

 

 

Against Everton, most of the time it was Justin that pushed up the right hand side, and Ayew inverted from right wing to become a 10 along side El Khanouss. That is the Cooper system in a nutshell, though there is a bit more to it as the second CDM (Skipp or Ndidi) also pushes up ahead of Winks.

[Kopic]

Thoroughly disappointed by the thread title.