20 Championship players to catch the eye against Leicester City
Leicester City have now played every team in the Championship. So who’s stood out for the opposition when they’ve come up against Enzo’s winning machine?
Jordan James - Birmingham
Leicester have been linked with teenage Welsh midfielder Jordan James in the past. He was always going to be on this list - after all, 21 Championship teams have failed to score twice against us. James is obviously the only player to have struck twice past Mads Hermansen.
The coolness with which he took his first goal was really impressive. A clever run onto a reverse pass and a slot into the bottom corner. Sometimes you see young footballers playing at a lower level and you just know they're going to make it towards the top. Perhaps those links to Leicester will return in the future - it’s about time we had another goalscoring Welsh midfielder.
Leif Davis - Ipswich Town
One of the Championship's best performers this season outside of LE2, Leif Davis had a nightmare before Christmas when returning to his former club Leeds.
An own goal and a penalty concession contributed to Ipswich's 4-0 defeat and helped us open up a 6-point gap.
3 days later, he showed character to put in an impressive display - Abdul Fatawu was kept in check, while at the other end Davis created 5 chances including multiple set piece deliveries that probably should have resulted in headed goals.
Crysencio Summerville - Leeds United
Another of the best players in the league, Summerville earns his place here less for what he achieved in early November's 1-0 win for Leeds than the threat he posed. It took some brilliant last-ditch defending from Ricardo Pereira to deny him more than once.
We haven’t had that sense of panic very often this season, with a dangerous winger dribbling past multiple players and making a Salah-esque beeline for goal.
A bit like Harry Winks, he looked like a Premier League player elevating a top-end Championship team. But that comparison is being kind to Leeds…
Cohen Bramall - Rotherham United
Coming 10 days after Abdul Fatawu had caused Millwall's left-back so many problems he'd had to be substituted, it was noticeable when Fatawu failed to have the same effect against lowly Rotherham.
That he struggled, relatively speaking, was down to some excellent one-on-one defending from the pacey Cohen Bramall - a 27-year-old who Arsenal plucked from non-league but who has still made fewer than 70 appearances at this level.
At his age, Bramall's inclusion on this list is probably more to do with a fine one-off showing rather than signs of anything better to come.
Morgan Whittaker - Plymouth Argyle
At the time of writing, only Blackburn's Sammie Szmodics has scored more Championship goals this season than Plymouth's Morgan Whittaker.
Among the 25 highest scorers in the division, Szmodics is also the only player to have taken more shots (59) than Whittaker's 57.
When Plymouth came to Filbert Way, they were duly dispatched back to Devon with a 4-0 defeat but Whittaker showed glimpses of his potential. In the first half especially, he gave James Justin a headache when he cut in from the right. He’s likely to be more of a threat in the return fixture where Plymouth are far stronger.
Aaron Ramsey - Cardiff City and Sam Greenwood - Middlesbrough
Admittedly, these inclusions might remind you of one of those Garth Crooks team of the week columns where he just picks 10 players who have scored.
They were both magnificent goals. Ramsey fired in from distance to haul Cardiff level back in August when we thought Cesare Casadei would be the second coming of Andy King. Greenwood struck the best free kick of the Championship season so far up in the North East to deny us a point.
In a shock turn of events, after scoring 4 times in his first 8 games, Ramsey has been missing since mid-September through injury, while Greenwood, on loan from Leeds, has only scored once in 7 games since his late intervention against Leicester.
Gustavo Hamer - Coventry City (now Sheffield United)
Another of those that just looked like a Premier League player. Sheffield United agreed, so they took him to the top flight just days after he'd played at Filbert Way on the opening day.
It feels as though Leicester's task is to find a similar kind of player in January - a midfielder who can go box-to-box while providing a high quality end product.
Casadei is still failing, a fair breeze would knock Yunus over and Dennis Praet is presumably set for another month in the departure lounge waiting for the thumbs-up for the flight to Turin. As Boxing Day showed, what should be good midfield squad depth actually feels like a dangerous risk to take, especially with Wilfred Ndidi off to AFCON shortly.
Everyone - Sunderland
You thought there were another 11 of these to go, didn't you? Sunderland remain the best team we've played this season despite losing 1-0 and currently sitting 23 points behind us.
Maybe, just maybe, one-off results or performances aren't that important when you've played 24 games and only dropped points in 5 of them. But enough about Leeds fans.
Our record before we played Sunderland at home was, remarkably: won eleven, lost one. Sunderland clearly played better than Hull did when they beat us and it was hard to pick out any one individual (although, as someone has mentioned in response to this article on Twitter, Patrick Roberts was a complete menace that night). Overall, it was an energetic showing from a team packed with promising young players.
In fact, it's still hard to fathom how they've lost 10 games this season based on that display, but that just sums up the Championship - an absolutely mad league that makes no real sense whatsoever. Here’s to another 5 months of it…
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
