Leicester City’s Second Pre-Season Win Reveals Three Eye-Catching Details!

Leicester City continued their 100% win record so far in pre-season on Tuesday night with a 2-1 win over League One Shrewsbury Town.

Steve Cooper will have got to grips with his new Leicester City squad now, having been appointed at the start of the summer following Enzo Maresca’s departure.

That is a squad that is without last season’s star man Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who Maresca took with him to Chelsea for £30 million, but despite that they have won two out of two in pre-season so far.

After a week in France culminated with a friendly against Villarreal split into two 60-minute matches, Leicester returned to England to face Shrewsbury Town in much cooler conditions on Tuesday.

Having beaten Villarreal 2-1 at the weekend, the Foxes won by the same scoreline on Tuesday, with Kasey McAteer and Stephy Mavididi on the scoresheet; the latter making it two goals in two games.

With that in mind, here are three things that caught the eye in Cooper’s second game in charge.

Steve Cooper set Leicester City up in different formation to Villarreal game

One of the biggest questions following Cooper’s arrival at the King Power has been what formation he is going to play.

In previous jobs at Nottingham Forest, Swansea City and England under-17s, Cooper has used a variety of different systems so is not a manager renowned for using one particular set-up.

Generally speaking, the Welshman used either a 3-4-3 or a 4-2-3-1 shape most recently at Forest.

The new Leicester boss sprung something of a surprise against Villarreal by setting his side up in a relatively simple 4-4-2 formation, but it would appear he is not wed to this idea as he used a 4-2-3-1 against Shrewsbury.

However, there were some nuances to this shape, as it was only a 4-2-3-1 out of possession, resembling more of a 3-4-2-1 with the ball.

Some of this may be down to the lack of strikers available, with Jamie Vardy absent for Tuesday night’s game, so it is certainly one to keep an eye on as the summer preparations progress.

Ricardo Pereira given new Leicester role v Shrewsbury

Leicester started the game against Shrewsbury with a back four of Ricardo Pereira, Ben Nelson, Conor Coady and Luke Thomas.

Maresca also predominantly used a back four last season, but right-back Pereira would invert into a central midfield position a lot of the time when Leicester had the ball; meaning Leicester’s defence then became a back three.

Whilst Cooper used a similar tactic in terms of shifting to a three-man defence with the ball, Pereira performed a different role to make this possible against Shrewsbury.

When Leicester had the ball, Pereira would push forward high and wide.

This allowed McAteer- who was on the right wing out of possession – to step into a more central role alongside Mavididi and left-back Thomas to tuck in to form a three alongside Nelson and Coady.

Abdul Fatawu should not play on the left for Leicester

This tactic with the ball saw Abdul Fatawu effectively become a left wing-back.

Having played almost exclusively from the right wing in his successful loan spell last season, Fatawu was expected to reprise the role after signing permanently this summer.

However, Cooper used the Ghanaian on the left wing against Shrewsbury, to then become a wing-back with the ball.

This can go down as a failed experiment, with Fatawu’s influence when playing on the left very limited.

That is because the 20-year-old’s strengths lie in running at his full-back and finding a way to cut inside onto his favoured left foot.

When playing on the left, Fatawu becomes very one-dimensional and looked a little lost at times with the new tactic.

Pre-season is the time to try things, but perhaps Cooper will be best off avoiding using Fatawu on the left moving forward.