First it was Jamie Vardy, now it’s Wilfred Ndidi. This summer’s departures mean there’s no longer any players still at the club who played in Leicester City’s glorious Champions League run.
Ndidi was signed from Genk for around £15m during the January transfer window in 2017 (that’s right, it is possible to improve the team in the winter window). As a teenager, he’d already made 61 starts for the Belgian club, who had a excellent record of recruiting African players. He went on to make 303 appearances for Leicester City.
Even though he was just 19 when we signed him, Ndidi slotted straight into the N’Golo Kanté-shaped hole in the reigning Champions’ midfield. He joined a team that had been magnificent in the Champions League before Christmas (ignoring the dead rubber in Porto) but was struggling in the Premier League, despite a famous December victory over Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City on Filbert Way.
During the first part of that season, the loss of Kanté to Chelsea was stark. Daniel Amartey and a few others were tried in midfield without success, and it was clear the position was an area that needed attention.
To address the issue, the signing was made almost immediately as soon as the window opened in January 2017 (those were the days!), allowing Ndidi to make his debut in an FA Cup game at Goodison Park.
The early signs were very promising. Standing over six feet tall and with telescopic legs, Ndidi immediately gave the team some some defensive solidity, playing a large part in a welcome victory against the Toffees to progress into the next round.
Although our Premier League form didn’t pick up immediately, culminating in the sad (but correct) decision to replace King Claudio, Ndidi had settled in well. He played a pivotal part in the rapid move away from danger under Craig Shakespeare, and indeed that memorable Champions League win over Sevilla and the agonising exit to Atletico Madrid.
Teenage Ndidi, aside from being able to “take the ball from you”, posed a real threat with long range shots. There was a cracker against Derby County in the next round of the FA Cup (Martin Tyler beating his peers to the Yes iN-deedi line), which was followed up with an even better one against Stoke for his first Premier League goal. Ndidi also scored a great goal for Genk earlier that season before moving to us.
Eight years on, the above paragraph reads as if it’s describing a different player. His comically bad shooting became a running joke with fans and teammates alike in the time since. Although he has popped up with the odd goal here and there over the years, those early strikes certainly represent the best of his show reel.
Not that this really mattered. What he was in the team to do, he did as well as anyone in the Premier League at the time, even rivalling his predecessor Kanté. Under Claude Puel, and particularly in the first two years under Brendan Rodgers, Ndidi was one of the first names on the teamsheet.
He rarely missed a game during this period (only 11 for club and country between 2017 and 2020), and was the lynchpin of a team that went from strength to strength. His energy and ability to break up play, while being a constant presence in front of the defence, allowed the creative players around him, such as Youri Tielemans and James Maddison, to flourish.
He played with a smile on his face and appeared to be a really popular member of the squad, alongside his compatriot Kelechi Iheanacho. He also represented Nigeria with distinction at the 2018 World Cup during this period.
The run of results in the Autumn of 2019 (the 0-9, thrashing Aston Villa at Villa Park, and Arsenal at home, amongst others) were probably the real high-water mark for Ndidi at Leicester. At this point, unless the opposition managed to move the ball beyond him, you felt pretty relaxed as a fan that we weren’t about to concede.
Of course, COVID interrupted that season and it’s fair to say Ndidi’s gradual decline began from Project Restart onwards.
He was still a big part of the FA Cup-winning team that finished 5th in 2021, and to this day he’s never been replaced in the team, but there’s no doubt he was no longer the commanding presence of old.
It’s very difficult to put a finger on exactly what triggered his decline. Although there wasn’t a season-ending injury like, say, Abdul Fatawu’s recent ACL lay-off, Ndidi did start to miss batches of games, with an abductor injury in early 2021 particularly troublesome to shake off (18 games missed for us and Nigeria as a result).
Did this, or other knocks (a knee in 21/22 – 20 games – and an unspecified injury around the time of AfCON in 23/24, a further 22 games), take something away from his combativeness?
There’s not been any repeat injuries and he’s always slotted straight back in. Nor has there ever been concerns from any managers. Wilf himself, a player who rarely talks to the media, hasn’t highlighted any issues like this when he has spoken.
If it’s not injuries, could it be that, at the very top level (which we were just 4 years ago), maybe the role of the defensive midfielder changed? No longer could a player simply be a destroyer, a more all-round game is now needed?
This was picked up a number of times by Matt Piper on Radio Leicester, who initially wondered if Ndidi could add more to his game to ‘move to the next level’, before later conceding that it didn’t appear possible. Was this an error from Brendan Rodgers, trying to change something that didn’t need to be, or even couldn’t be, changed?
With the quality of player around him also beginning to decline, we needed more from a senior member of the team. However, his efforts to become the sort of midfielder who could receive the ball from the defence and ‘make the play’ ultimately were unsuccessful.
In addition to this, bar one blast at Danny Ward away at Brighton, I never felt he stepped up to lead on the pitch, as you’d expect a key player and experienced international to do.
Although there has been the odd whisper of transfer speculation over the years, I can’t recall any significant links away from Leicester. Had other teams spotted some flaws that we hadn’t? Going back to that 2018-2020 period, there was often discussion online with West Ham fans over comparisons with Declan Rice. At the time, I’d say without question Ndidi was the better player, playing higher up the league as well.
However, in the years since, the trajectory of the two players has been completely opposite. Rice added that all-round skill set to his game to become a £100m player, consistently starting for Arsenal and England. There’s no debate now.
Injuries, form, change of role, not getting a move away, or something else? Maybe the reason for that drastic shift will become clear in the years to come.
Although I personally have always really liked Ndidi, I can’t write this article without chastising him for his ‘contribution’ during our first relegation season. In early May 2023, as we hurtled towards relegation, I wrote that his performances were that poor that if Fantasy Premier League awarded points for ‘assisting the opposition’, he’d be everyone’s triple captain!
He was by no means solely responsible for that horrendous season, but his own form plummeted. He gave away numerous penalties via stray arms or dangling legs, on top of many errors in possession leading to goals (Villa at home was a particular horror show).
In his early years, the best word to describe him was ‘colossal’, but by this point the most appropriate word would probably have been ‘clumsy’. He certainly wasn’t giving us the performances we needed from an experienced and established player.
Poor form aside, it was still expected that Ndidi would have moved on during that summer. As a player with pedigree and into the last year of his contract, he looked ripe for a move. However, nothing of substance came about, and he found himself playing further forward under Enzo Maresca. It has to be said, this raised eyebrows initially, although many were simply glad he was further away from our goal and out of harm’s way.
He had a good season in the Championship winning side, but once again there was little interest from other teams in signing him on a free transfer in summer 2024.
Ultimately, we renewed his contract for a further 3 years, but once back in the Premier League his lack of technical ability left him, and the side as a whole, well short when playing in the advanced role of the previous season. Under Ruud van Nistelrooy, Ndidi did return to his more familiar defensive midfield role, but by now he was a peripheral and pretty anonymous figure and we drifted back to the Championship.
So, where does this leave him and how will he be remembered? The way he settled into the area, achieving a business degree in the process, his happy-go-lucky demeanour, and his early success I feel will spare him from too much bad feeling for where we are as he leaves.
However, the fact he’s moving away from Europe’s major leagues to Turkey, when he should be in the prime of his career, speaks volumes for how far his stock has fallen. Many fans are simply glad to get a fee (pure profit for PSR purposes thanks to his length of service) and remove another big wage from the bill, which really is a sad ending. Without Vardy and now Ndidi, the team will feel very different this season.
Fellow TFW writer Jamie Thorpe recently said that Ndidi had become a metaphor for the rise and fall of the club as a whole. That hits the nail on the head.
I do hope he can recapture some form, and I think that overall, he’ll be fondly remembered by the majority of fans in years to come. Wilf, thank you and goodbye.
The Fosse Way 