Leicester dramatically missed out on a top 4 finish on the final day of the campaign by losing 0:2 at home to Man United. The Foxes had very bad luck with injuries after the COVID-break and their form definitely took a nose-dive after the 4-month interruption to the season.
Until round 29 in March, Leicester were cemented in a top 3 position, having spent 27 of the first 29 rounds up there. Then came the COVID-break and clearly coach Rodgers and his players couldn’t maintain momentum going into June and July.
Leicester remained very strong on counterattack all season and veteran striker Vardy won his first ever Golden Boot with his 23 goals. Schmeichel, Soyuncu, Barnes and Ndidi also had very strong seasons. The Foxes were compact and very hard to break down until March and in games when all the regulars were available they were competitive against anyone.
Unfortunately, lack of depth proved costly after the restart with the absence of main playmaker, Maddison, and 3 or 4 starters in defence proving decisive in the final few rounds – 3 defeats in the last 4 games of the season!
Coach Rodgers should take a lot of the blame for the failure. After the break he insisted on using a back three on too many occasions when it was obvious this was not working with Leicester earning just 2 points from 5 games.
With Vardy a year older and not certain how much money there will be for strengthening, Leicester could find it hard to even qualify for Europe in 2020/21 by the looks of things.
