West Ham United vs Leicester City

On Saturday afternoon West Ham will entertain a side who have lost their last seven away games in the league, a side who have not won in eleven league games, a side who have picked up two points since September.

Leicester City are the league’s basement side going into this game. Only three teams have scored fewer goals, only one team has conceded more.

On paper, this is a game we should comfortably win. But the game isn’t played on paper, is it?

Despite their disappointing recent form, the Foxes have a number of players in their ranks who have the capability to win any game.

Jamie Vardy showed in their last victory (against Manchester United) that he can mix it with the best on his day, Leo Ulloa has only scored one goal less than Diafra Sakho, and Esteban Cambiasso has played for some of the biggest clubs in the world in his career.

In recent weeks though, there has been one man who has performed consistently for Leicester, and can be a thorn in the side of any fullback. Riyad Mahrez is one of few players in the squad to have continued in the same vein as last season.

The Algerian winger is creating more than a chance a game, has hit the target with 68% of his shots on goal, and has been successful with 50% of a massive 58 attempted take ons (this after just 12 appearances).

In their last game, a one nil defeat by the reigning champions, Mahrez was a box of tricks and full of attacking intent. On the day, he attempted a massive 11 take ons, and was successful with six of them (as shown in the image below).

Whilst Mahrez is a clear threat going forward, his stats suggest that he is also a worker. In 12 appearances this season, the winger has attempted 46 tackles, winning 12 of them.

In the last away game the Foxes played, the visit to Villa Park, Mahrez attempted five tackles, made two interceptions and blocked three passes. The tackles are shown below.

Leicester may not be the most dangerous side in the league, but with players like Mahrez in their ranks they will always be capable of springing a surprise and causing an upset.

Nigel Pearson has commonly gone for a 4-4-2 this season, with Ulloa and Vardy seemingly the preferred combination up top. He has mixed this up and played variations on the 4-5-1 on a few occasions, but according to WhoScored.com, the Foxes have gone with a traditional 4-4-2 9 times out of 16.

In the main strike pairing, Leicester have a traditional little and large combination, with Vardy the rapid, willing runner and Ulloa capable of giving any centre back a tough day at the office.

The image below shows the average positions of the Leicester side in the last two away games that Vardy and Ulloa have both started. What you can clearly see, is that Vardy (#9) pushing ahead of Ulloa (#23). This suggests that the Argentine drops off to win flick ons, whilst the Englishman runs ahead to pick up the loose ball.

The way in which opposition defences have combated this approach is for one the centre backs to play relatively narrow, one to drop off slightly, and at least one central midfielder sitting slightly in front, anchoring the defence.

We can see this in both the Aston Villa and QPR line ups.

For Villa, both Ciaran Clark (#6) and Jores Okore (#5) played close together with Okore ever so slightly deeper, whilst Ashley Westwood (#15) set in between in a holding midfield role.

For QPR, Nedum Onuoha (#15) dropped off even deeper, but was still close to Steven Caulker (#4), whilst Joey Barton (#8) marshaled the midfield.

If you compare this to the average positions of the Manchester United back line in that famous 5-3 win for the Foxes, you can see exactly what went wrong for Louis van Gaal’s team.

Jonny Evans (#6) and Tyler Blackett (#42) both dropped off very deep, but were alone in this, as the rest of the side just went gung ho. Daley Blind (#17) was charged with anchoring the midfield, but you can see that he was far advanced from his colleagues. The gap between the centre backs was also very wide, allowing the likes of Vardy to run into space.

Leicester have a number of key weaknesses, that I’ve already highlighted. They don’t score enough goals, they can’t win away, and they concede far too many.

The most important of those is probably that defensive frailty. What is interesting about Leicester’s defensive weakness, is that is not underpinned by poor mistakes. They rank 15th for defensive errors conceded (7 errors), and only two of those have led to goals.

That is less errors than the likes of Chelsea, Everton and Liverpool.

What this suggests though, is that Leicester concede goals not because of lapses in concentration or one person slipping up. Instead, they concede goals because they are not that good at the back.

This is borne out by WhoScored.com’s statistically calculated team characteristics. According to WhoScored, Leicester’s weakness include all manner of defensive vulnerabilities.

In the league this season, no side has allowed the opposition more shots on their goal than Leicester, only one side has made more fouls per game, and only one side has conceded more goals.

This is a game West Ham should win.

Our home form has been terrific since we started the season with a hat-trick of defeats, with us winning 5 and drawing one of our subsequent matches at the Boleyn.

Leicester have players that can hurt us, and we should be mindful of that, but anything less than a home victory will be a disappointment.