JibrinFive tasks Gary Rowett must complete to drag Leicester City out of crisis
The new boss has a monumental challenge on his hands to rescue the club from slipping into League One, with 14 matches remaining to turn their fortunes around and secure Championship survival
Leicester City are in turmoil and Gary Rowett is the man entrusted with being their rescuer.
Given the financial consequences of dropping into League One, City must stay up. It’s now Rowett’s mission to accomplish that.
He starts with the club on a run of one point from six outings and two points adrift of safety inside the bottom three. He has 14 games to steer City clear of danger.
Here are the biggest challenges on his plate.
Sort out the defence
This is the largest and most obvious job on Rowett’s to-do list. City have conceded at least once in all of their past 26 Championship fixtures. An inability to keep clean sheets severely hinders City’s ability to gather points.
Rowett knows how to organise a backline. A clean sheet record of one-in-three at Championship level is excellent. But can he achieve it with this squad of players?
He should be able to. In the nine games Rowett had Ben Nelson available for at the back end of last season, Oxford kept four clean sheets. Arguably Nelson has more talented players around him now than he did at the Kassam Stadium.
But it’s not just about talent. It’s about structure, and it’s about grit. Supporters have questioned whether either have been present this season. It’s also about mindset. City seem to collapse when one goal goes in.
So Rowett has to instil those qualities and select the right quartet or quintet to deliver them. At centre-back, there’s limited options at the moment, but there’s two full-backs on each flank. Could Bade Aluko and Victor Kristiansen replace Ricardo Pereira and Luke Thomas?
Decide on Winks and midfield balance
It’s not just the defensive line that contribute to the backline, but the engine room. Sometimes, it has felt like there’s been a shortage of protection.
Right now, Rowett has five midfielders to fill three slots, provided he’s going for a 4-3-3 or 4-2-3-1. They are Harry Winks, Oliver Skipp, Joe Aribo, Louis Page, and Divine Mukasa.
Winks is the big name there, and perhaps the most gifted, but he’s very much an in-possession player. Rowett’s teams rarely dominate the ball.
In that case, Rowett has to determine if Winks suits his system and find the equilibrium between offering defensive cover but also ensuring plenty of ball reaches the forward players.
Mukasa is another fascinating case. He’s clearly immensely talented and looks like he can contribute a lot in attacking areas. But he’s raw out of possession.
Plus, City have Bobby De Cordova-Reid returning at Boro, and then Jordan James, Aaron Ramsey and Hamza Choudhury to come back shortly too. There’s options there for Rowett.
Get Mavididi contributing again
Two seasons ago, when City won the Championship, Stephy Mavididi was involved in a goal once every 200 minutes. This term, he’s averaging a goal or assist every 438 minutes in the league.
It’s not that the same level of output is anticipated as when City were storming the division, but the wide man is clearly capable of delivering more than he has been of late and it’s down to Rowett to help him do so. On the opposite flank, Abdul Fatawu is having no difficulties.
It may also be on Rowett’s checklist to make City’s striker a menace, with neither Patson Daka nor Jordan Ayew troubling defences too much.
But if Rowett can get Mavididi firing, while also maintaining Fatawu’s scoring rate and the goal contributions from midfield, then City should have enough firepower, even if the forwards don’t improve.
Find a level of consistency
It’s not that City have been unable to perform well this season, it’s that they’ve not delivered across 90 minutes.
Since the start of December, they’ve demonstrated how well they can play in the opening halves at Derby, at home to Ipswich, at Coventry, and at home to Southampton. Maintain those levels across a full match and they will climb the table rapidly.
But they often disintegrate. Across those four games, City lost the second halves by a combined scoreline of 8-1.
Rowett has to ensure then that when City start brightly, the instructions he gives at half-time guarantee they continue to perform well after the interval.
Give fans something to get behind
Rowett walks into a club in a sour mood. There won’t be the immediate lift to the atmosphere that new bosses typically enjoy. For his first home fixture, there is a demonstration scheduled calling for the owners to sell up.
However, supporters respond to committed defending and positive attacking football. Deliver those and the atmosphere will lift quickly.
Rowett is unlikely to be able to shift how fans feel about the ownership and the hierarchy in just a couple of months, but he can ensure that, at least during the 90 minutes of action at the King Power Stadium, his team produce a brand of football that the fans can’t help but rally behind.
If he’s unable to do that, the gloomy atmosphere inside the ground will persist and potentially affect results adversely.
Jibrin
