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Leicester City have been far from their best in recent weeks.

Brendan Rodgers' men are enduring their worst run of the season so far , winning just two of their last six games.

They now sit in third, three points behind Manchester City, though still with a six-point lead over Chelsea in fourth.

But what has gone wrong in recent weeks? How have the Foxes allowed for back-to-back defeats to Southampton and Burnley respectively ?

Rodgers' men took the lead in each of those games, but lost 2-1 on both occasions, fatigue from the Christmas period cited as one of the main reasons.

The defence has also come in for fire, particularly Ben Chilwell, who didn't feature in the game against Burnley .

But what has changed for the back-line, and how much of the poor form can really be pinned on them?

The unsettled back-line

Rodgers has opted to chop and change his back-line in recent weeks, and that's likely down to the festive fixtures taking their toll.

Across the last four league games, which were back-to-back wins over West Ham and Newcastle followed by back-to-back defeats to Southampton and Burnley, Rodgers hasn't started the same back-line twice.

(Image: Nigel Roddis/Getty Images)

All four games have a different combination of players with three back fours and one back five.

That could well have some impact on how the back-line is settling and indeed performing.

The stats

With the help of WhoScored , we have compared stats from the back-to-back wins and compared them with the two most recent defeats to see if anything stands out in terms of stats.

Interestingly, City's defenders have actually been dispossessed less often in the last two games, accumulating averages of 0.25 across all four defenders in each of those games, comparing to averages of 0.4 and 0.75 in the previous two.

But it does seem as though the Foxes' defence have been asked to do significantly more of late.

In the two defeats, the back-line accumulated an average of three tackles per player, which is up from 1.8 from the win over Newcastle and one from the win at West Ham.

City defenders won six aerial duels on average in the defeat to Burnley, perhaps owing to the Clarets' direct style, winning an average of 2.5 at Southampton.

At West Ham, the back-line won an average of 2.75 aerial duels each, a figure that dropped to two for the convincing win over Newcastle.

The most concerning statistic, though, lies within pass accuracy, which suggests City's defence are giving the ball away much more in recent weeks.

In the wins over West Ham and Newcastle, the defence managed average pass accuracies of 82.5% and 94% respectively.

Those figures dropped to 74.5% and 76% in the last two games.

What does that tell us

The stats, first and foremost, tell us that City's back-line is being asked to do more work than in recent weeks.

Why? The absence of Wilfred Ndidi may have something to do with it, though the Nigerian didn't play at Newcastle and the Foxes copes rather well, albeit against a depleted Magpies side.

Tiredness in front of the defence could also be a factor, Rodgers likes his team to defend from the front, to press, and running stats may reveal a dip in that respect, requiring a bigger workload from the back.

(Image: Clive Mason/Getty Images)

But clearly execution is also an issue with City's defence at the moment.

For pass accuracy to take a significant dip tells us City's defenders aren't the well-oiled machine we became used to in the first half of the season.

And that's been proven in plain sight with costly errors from Jonny Evans and Caglar Soyuncu leading to goals in the last two games, with Chilwell enduring his worst run of the campaign.

City's defence clearly aren't being helped by those in front of them, but by the same token, they aren't helping themselves.

Rodgers is understood to want to strengthen the back-line in the coming weeks and that may just prove a wise move while the current starters - both in the defence and in more advanced areas - battle to regain their form.