Abdul Fatawu is back – and Leicester City can be electrifying again
10th November 2024. Leicester City lose 3-0 at Manchester United. Nothing special. We lose every week.
It is, of course, Ruud van Nistelrooy’s last game in the home dugout at Old Trafford, surrounded by his adoring masses, before taking the Leicester job and tanking his career for the foreseeable. But it also sadly turns out to be our final sighting of Abdul Fatawu in the 2024/25 season.
Fatawu’s numbers that day tell something of the story about what Leicester would miss for the remainder of the campaign, if you’ll forgive some tedious terminology here. 12 of 15 dribbles completed. 18 of 26 ground duels and every aerial duel won, along with 5 free kicks. A comfortable afternoon for most United players, but not for Diogo Dalot.
In a season when Leicester failed to match their opponents on a weekly basis, here was a player who did compete and cause headaches for his marker. But arguably even more importantly, given what happened from then on in, Fatawu is a source of joy.
This is trickier to quantify. It will be reflected in duels and dribbles and various other metrics because if a footballer isn’t effective then they won’t bring any joy to supporters regardless of how many stepovers they can perform. But it’s deeper than that.
No matter how much you love Abdul Fatawu, there’s no reasonable case to be made that he took the Premier League by storm in those first three months before injury. He had his moments, of course. But he didn’t make the leap up in quality with ease.
Even so, the threat that he would do something often worried the opposition. They would be forced to keep an eye on him. It affected their play. That concern practically disappeared as soon as he was missing from the teamsheet. Leicester were stale, predictable and utterly one-paced in attack.
It made for a joyless trudge through the rest of the fixture list. It was Ayew and Reid for a few games that felt like months on end.
67 minutes had passed of a largely forgettable pre-season stroll in the far western reaches of Hungary when Fatawu made his long-awaited comeback. He wasn’t involved in the Jordan Ayew goal that came along three minutes later and won the game for Leicester. His two shots were fairly weak attempts straight at the Zalaegerszeg keeper. And it was just a friendly match against unremarkable opposition.
But what a difference Fatawu makes to this Leicester team. A burst here. A drive there. And suddenly you find yourself looking forward to the season in spite of everything.
This is because we know what he can do at Championship level. Not just the electrifying explosions past a full-back but the numbers too. Ten more big chances created than anyone else in the division and double all but three other players could achieve. He’s a creator and he deserves a surrounding cast to help make the most of that creativity.
In Martí Cifuentes’s first week at the club, there has been a focus on the strong relationships he likes his players to build on the pitch. With such a large squad and no outgoings yet, it’s still not clear who exactly will be forging those relationships.
There are three or four decent options at right-back while the midfield is currently full of top flight experience, Bilal El Khannouss is still around and it’s unclear who will be tasked with replacing Jamie Vardy.
The striker conundrum is where the main question marks about Fatawu’s effectiveness lie now that he’s made his return to action. Have Leicester got the firepower to turn his chance creation into goals? Despite a wealth of options in attacking positions, there is barely anyone you could describe as a natural goalscorer.
