Why Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was selected over Luke Thomas in Leicester City 'experiment'

Brendan Rodgers chose to play Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as a left-sided wing-back because he wanted to experiment with a more attack-minded option than Luke Thomas.

Dewsbury-Hall was a surprise pick on the left flank as Rodgers made six changes to his Leicester City side for the defeat to Everton on Sunday. James Justin and Ricardo Pereira were both unavailable through injury, but Rodgers eschewed the obvious choice in Thomas to see how a fellow academy graduate fared.

Rodgers believed that Dewsbury-Hall had the attributes to take on the role, but could also provide more attacking thrust than Thomas does. It also allowed him to introduce another forward-thinking player to the midfield trio, with Ayoze Perez coming into a role that perhaps would have been occupied by James Maddison had he been fit.

The experiment only lasted one half, with Harvey Barnes brought on for Perez at the interval as City chased an equaliser. Dewsbury-Hall then shuffled back inside.

Asked for the reason why he picked the 23-year-old at left-wing-back, Rodgers said: “Just to put an extra attacker in, in Ayo, and with Kiernan coming in to play in that role to have a look and experiment with. Because if we ever needed to play in a different system in a different way, it was just to see him in that role.

“He can get up the pitch and can be more aggressive. Luke’s a young player who serves more behind the game. So it was for an attacking reason to play him there, and also to play Ayo.

“The second half, we changed it. We had lots of attacking players on the pitch, bringing a winger on and moving him (Dewsbury-Hall) inside. We had enough of the ball in those areas but just failed to create.”

Rodgers has also said his team selection was in part due to