In 2023, it was Alex Smithies. In 2025, Odsonne Edouard. Right now, take your pick between Wanya Marcal and Dujuan Richards.
It’s time for the almost annual protest vote for Leicester City’s player of the season.
This is an important part of the grieving process for Leicester fans as we lament the loss of a serious football club and embrace the pantomime that we’ve become.
At least things are a little different this year – because we actually have a standout candidate for the real award. Jordan James is the clear winner. Abdul Fatawu, for the many match-winning moments he delivered in the first half of the season, is almost as clear a runner-up.
The real quiz this time is who comes third. Posing the question first to our writers and then to our readers has been interesting and insightful. Of course, the answers have included “nobody”, “lol”, “…”, a single sweating emoji and “what an awful question to have to consider”.
But some people actually took it seriously, then maybe regretted that as they scratched their head and ran through the members of the worst-performing squad in Leicester’s history.
There have been multiple shouts for Harry Souttar, who returned from 483 days out to put in one of the best individual performances of the season last Friday.
That goalscoring display against Millwall provided a bigger what-if moment than any missed chances or dropped points during the run-in. Souttar showed everything Leicester have missed all season in one 90-minute stint: commanding defensive qualities and a rugged determination to score a goal. He’s a sympathetic candidate, even if the sample size is miniscule.
Among the more serious suggestions, we’ve had Louis Page, who has only started 4 games, Ben Nelson and, in an excellent example of recency bias, Luke Thomas.
But by far the most popular choice, with 63% of the responses, was Oliver Skipp.
Skipp has been a bit-part player up to now in his career. At the age of 25, this is his second busiest season and he still completed less than two-thirds of the league minutes available.
His true strengths and worth feel yet to be defined. When he’s played as a defensive midfielder, Leicester have still been wide open. When he’s played higher up the pitch in recent weeks in the absence of Jordan James, he’s missed a string of chances. He’s not exactly a creator either.
Spending circa £20million apiece on Boubakary Soumare and Oliver Skipp are two decisions three years apart that have both played an underrated part in Leicester’s decline. There’s been a lot of focus this year on the defence given the lack of clean sheets and our non-scoring strikers. But so many issues have stemmed from Leicester’s inability to compete physically in midfield.
Relatively little money has been spent since the arrival of Soumare, Patson Daka and Jannik Vestergaard in the notorious summer of 2021. The only other player signed for more than £15m in that period was Bilal El Khannouss. So it was vital they got signings like Soumare and Skipp right. They didn’t.
In Soumare, Leicester thought they were signing someone whose attributes could cover both Wilfred Ndidi and Youri Tielemans. In Skipp they thought they were signing someone to replace the energy lost when Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall was sold to Chelsea. The attacking contributions of both players has been virtually nil for such a huge outlay, while defensively they haven’t offered enough either.
Have Leicester been better when Skipp has played this season? If you take Leicester’s goal difference while each player has been on the pitch, it’s hard to make a case. For those who have played at least 5 full 90s, the scale ranges from Jeremy Monga (20 for, 10 against) to Jamaal Lascelles (4 for, 13 against).
Skipp is pretty much bang in the middle of the list, although he is at least well clear of Harry Winks whose presence seemed to be a hindrance rather than a help.
FotMob’s player rating system, which is admittedly skewed heavily in favour of those contributing goals and assists, places Skipp joint 12th among Leicester players this season on 6.58 alongside Bobby Decordova-Reid and Stephy Mavididi. That puts him below Jordan Ayew (11th, 6.62), Winks (7th, 6.90) and Luke Thomas (5th, 6.92). Mere availability is a positive when you compare Skipp to someone like Victor Kristiansen, but he is not a dynamic nor a reassuring presence.
The fact Skipp has received that vote of confidence from supporters is, of course, a commentary on the effort levels of other players. The rest of this squad has made him look like N’Golo Kante at times. Fans have warmed to Skipp to a certain extent because he tries hard. In a season like this one, trying hard automatically puts you in the top 10%.
Bring on the big clearout, but it remains to be seen what kind of squad Leicester will end up with in League One. Questions about which players fans would want to keep seem moot. Everyone will have a price, and a much lower one than they would have had if the club had staved off relegation.
Recognition of Oliver Skipp’s relative work ethic is another clue for the hierarchy about the values Leicester fans want to see from their team. In a week when every football podcast on the planet has been rushing to reflect on the Premier League title win of ten years ago, memories of the basic desire running through the team and the club at that time have been striking.
Those fundamentals are the polar opposite of what we’ve been subjected to all season from a team who have felt they have nothing to prove. This summer needs to see the biggest reset in Leicester City’s history, with the aim to provide more than one genuine candidate for next season’s individual honours.
The Fosse Way 