Formed by Hammers supporters Jack Elderton and Callum Goodall to offer their fellow fans in-depth but accessible analysis of their team and its players, Analytics United use performance analysis and data to examine how the Foxes’ visit to London Stadium could play out...
Having lost ten of their last eleven Premier League fixtures, Leicester City have been enduring a terrible run through the winter. Wolves are five points clear at the time of writing, and with six-pointers coming up against the current bottom three for Vítor Pereira’s team, crunch time has arrived at the King Power. If Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side don’t immediately turn things around and start winning games, they could easily find themselves cut adrift over the coming weeks.
Since arriving at Leicester with a bang, beating then-Julen Lopetegui’s West Ham 3-1 on 3 December, van Nistelrooy has made several changes to the team but is still yet to find a consistent winning formula. Tactically, little has changed beyond a shift in build-up from the 3-2 base we saw under both Enzo Maresca and Steve Cooper to a 4-2 base, which should theoretically provide greater coverage with an extra body in defence if the ball is turned over during build-up. The biggest casualty of this change has been ex-Spurs midfielder Harry Winks, with his role as the metronomic tempo-controller in the double-pivot being exchanged for the physical prowess offered when Boubakary Soumaré and Wilfred Ndidi are able to play together. This has then enabled young starlet Bilal El Khannouss to come into the team with the Moroccan starting every game since van Nistelrooy took over.
Although El Khannouss hasn’t produced many goals or assists, he has provided the same kind of progressive output as Winks did. The two rank as Leicester’s top progressive passers this season, on 92 and 78 respectively, and with El Khannouss taking on this mantle for the side, Leicester are theoretically able to avoid the potential transition weaknesses brought by Winks in favour of the counter-attack enabling qualities offered by El Khannouss. However, this hasn’t been joined up with a distinct shift to a clear counter-attacking approach as Leicester still dominated possession against Manchester City in their last game of 2024 and maintain an average possession of 45.9%, over 5% above more direct teams like Nottingham Forest and Everton.
Leicester also appear to lack both goalscoring and creative threat from midfield. Abdul Fatawu assisted 13 goals in the Championship last season and his knee injury, alongside Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall's transfer to Chelsea, have left a major void in the team that no other player has been able to fill. The current squad leader for expected assisted goals (xAG) is Facundo Buonanotte on 2.8, but the on-loan Argentinian has only started 12 games this season and Fatawu still ranks inside the top five, holding the squad-leading per 90 rate (0.24) despite being injured since early November. Nothing underlines this point more than Ndidi being the current assist-leader at Leicester on four assists with none of the attacking midfielders or wingers managing more than two.
Given that Jamie Vardy can’t assist himself, Leicester have quickly run into major trouble in recent months and have scored just twice in the last six matches, with both of those goals coming in their only league win this year against Spurs. With the team struggling in attack, defending well becomes even more important and, with ten goals conceded in just the last three games, things are looking concerning on this front too. Wout Faes, Jannik Vestergaard and Caleb Okoli have all played more than 1,000 minutes this season, but all three rank in the bottom 40% of Premier League centre-backs for success in the tackle. When paired with unimpressive aerial duelling rates and subpar progressive output, central defence looks like an area of extreme weakness when compared to the rest of the division.
This is particularly worrying given that Leicester concede the fourth-most touches in their own defensive third (191 per 90) and the third-most touches inside their own penalty area (32 per 90) compared to other teams across the league. Unsurprisingly, if the defenders aren’t able to dominate in these conditions, games can tailspin out of control with results and form following. Compared to fellow relegation-threatened side Ipswich Town, Leicester struggle when it comes to defending the box as Ipswich concede more touches in their own defensive third (196 per 90) but prevent entry to the penalty area far more successfully, conceding two fewer touches in the box each game.
Adding to those weaknesses, Leicester have also struggled to defend set-pieces this season, conceding the third-most shots from dead-ball situations despite only conceding the ninth-most set-pieces. With James Ward-Prowse returning to the West Ham squad, and with dangerous aerial threats to target like Tomáš Souček and Maximilian Kilman, this is a particular area in which West Ham might be able to find success. This runs alongside general ground duelling issues as Leicester sit third from bottom for duelling success in the league, something that Mohammed Kudus and Aaron Wan-Bissaka should be more than capable of exploiting, with Kudus ranking top of all Premier League players for completed dribbles (64) and Wan-Bissaka ranked second amongst full-backs (40).
Despite so much concerning data, Leicester can still dynamically exploit space on the break if given the opportunity to do so. Last time these sides met, van Nistelrooy’s team showed just how capable they can be on counter-attacks with dangerous ball-carriers like Buonanotte, El Khannouss and Stephy Mavididi supplying Vardy, who has still managed seven goals in the Premier League this season at 38 years old. As such, Potter’s side will have to defend well with the ball in order to limit the Foxes’ opportunities to break away whilst simultaneously creating enough pressure to generate key chances for excellent finishers like Jarrod Bowen and Evan Ferguson.
*The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of Analytics United and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of West Ham United.
