Brendan Rodgers once owned the mantra. This is the coach who saw their first season in the Premier League with Swansea getting the upper hand on the ball as no newcomer has ever competed. Only Manchester City finished more passes.
As a result of his commitment to this passing game Swansea were praised from the pitch at Anfield that season. He came to Liverpool soon after. But Rodgers has been willing to change his approach which has taken him to a new level in Leicester.
September brought his first win over Pep Guardiola. In November, Jose Mourinho was beaten for the first time. His former striker Chelsea had his first win in January and, earlier this month, Rodgers scored his first win over Jurgen Klopp.
When James Maddison puts air quotas around the term ‘big six’ it ‘s easy to see why. Leicester, recent champions of most of those six clubs, not only finished their fifth season last year and are looking in a good position to make the trip better. this, but they affect them.
Their record against these sides this term stands at five wins, one draw and one loss. If there was a mini-league between those ‘big seven’ Leicester are currently on course to win.
The reason for that is that Rodgers, the owner, has found a way to get nine of the 10 games in which his side had less than half the ball. They were ruthless inside sin A 5-2 win over Manchester City with the win coming from behind Liverpool.
“Maybe 10 to 12 years ago I was pretty much based on one system and one approach,” he explains Sky Sports. “In the modern game, you need more than one system and more than one way.”
Leicester have the ability to take complete control. That’s how their season started with a 3-0 win at West Brom in which they enjoyed 64 percent of possession. They then went on to win 4-2 over Burnley – and 68 per cent possession – at King Power Stadium.
But the key to their league position, with 25 games into the season in which they are in third place, is just four shy points of their position at this stage of the title-winning campaign, to the idea of Rodgers – and the players – shifting between ideas, always making the most of the approach.
“We still have the principles,” he explains.
“We want to control games. We want to push as high as we can. But naturally, when you play against top teams, the media doesn’t have to be at the top end of the game. You could refuse the place a little deeper to take advantage of that place when you have it. “
It is interesting that Rodgers frames it this way. In his opinion, Leicester are not sitting in a deep block to attack against the strongest sides in the league. They are still under pressure and, according to Opta, are still among the top six for pressurized series.
But they sometimes look to turn the ball over in a different zone of the pitch so that a place for Harvey Barnes and Jamie Vardy can take advantage when they run at defenses.
Barnes ’goal against Liverpool was due to a turn-off near the center circle. Vardy’s goal came just minutes earlier when Youri Tielemans collected the ball in his own half. Leicester didn’t sit as deep in every situation but they were able to resist.
It was another long pass from the Tielemans that sent Cengiz Under to square the ball for Vardy to score in the 1-0 win over Arsenal at the Emirates Stadium in October. The home side had controlled the ball for long periods of the game but Leicester found a way to win.
“What we have here is that we are able to find the balance between possession, pressure, counter-pressure and counter-attack. We can get into anything we need to play to match That is a great credit to the players that we have been able to accept that.
“That’s team maturation and it’s maturation for me as a coach. That balance allows you to be ready to go into every game and find the solutions in those games.”
How Rodgers makes systematic change works for Leicester
There have been times when Rodgers is accused of taking too much. Showering between systems always leaves coaches open to criticism when the result does not follow.
But nine Premier League wins with four backs and six wins with three backs shows that both systems can work. This flexibility in shape and style has inspired players to believe that they have the tools to win in a number of ways.
Importantly, it allowed them to change within matches. Against Liverpool, the transition turned into a diamond midfield with Barnes moving up the front of the game. At Everton, the half – time lead was to look to the sidelines that allowed them to re – enter.
In the 2-0 win over Chelsea, it was a minor tweak at the time they saw through. “Credit to the manager, we had a small half-time turnaround to go 4-4-2 out of possession,” Maddison said. Sky Sports. “Just little things like that, think of our feet.”
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James Maddison on how Jamie Carragher ‘s ideas inspired him
Maddison has drawn praise for the openness of his interviews and youthful exile is contagious. The Tielemans, who, at 23, are six months younger than Maddison, another next-generation Leicester are now emerging as true leaders.
With Vardy and Kasper Schmeichel left as key players, as well as the influences of Wes Morgan and Christian Fuchs still, there is that mix of youth and experience.
This is something Rodgers would have to work to nurture.
“In the modern game, I think it’s the job of the coach or the manager to find that balance,” he explains. “When you have key players who are built in a certain way you can easily look at the youngest player and think that they are not as professional or purposeful as they were when they were young. But life is different.
“When you come in and manage those challenges, you get to that point where you start to see each other. The key players are now looking at the youngest players and respect them because they are not afraid.
“The young lads look up to the key players because they see that experience, that support and that knowledge that is absolutely essential for their development because a young player will not develop unless they -he has that knowledge around him.
“I look at what we have. I always tend to try that mix of some really top professionals with an emerging group of young and hungry players. The Here at the club, we have a good balance with our seniors, our players and our young players.
“They’re both on the same oar and coming together really well.”
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In a sense, Rodgers embodies that integration of youth and self-experience. Despite being nearly ten years old when he first ruled in the Premier League, he is only 48 years old. Thirteen of the other 19 leaders in the competition are older than him.
He has stayed new enough to change but now has enough experience to be so secure in his beliefs that making changes feels like a compromise but an evolution.
Seven years after bringing the Premier League title race to the final day of the season with Liverpool, and four years on from his debut with Celtic, Rodgers is a better coach than ever. Leicester are the pros. If there are six big ones, they are there.