Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall: What’s the rest of the league seeing that Leicester fans aren’t?
It’s fair to say Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall divides opinion among Leicester City fans. Becky Taylor wonders whether he’s on track to win Championship Player of the Season despite not being Leicester’s best player.
Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall is an enigma. It's the only way to describe him. The range of opinion about KDH from the Leicester City fanbase confirms that - to some, he's a godlike figure who can do no wrong; to others, he's the complete pits.
Since the summer, he's been touted as the frontrunner for the Championship Player of the Season. He's still well in line for that prize, without even being Leicester's own Player of the Year.
The coverage of Dewsbury-Hall across the board is fascinating. He's not the usual type of player who attracts hype from outside your club, nor the type that wins Championship Player of the Season - a title collected predominantly by goalscoring centre-forwards over the years.
Prior to this season, Dewsbury-Hall had scored a total of 10 league goals across 4 seasons, picking up more cards (15) than goals in that time. Yet opposition fans and managers alike have spoken about him as if he's a cheat code for Leicester playing outside of the Premier League.
Consistently inconsistent
I completely lost my head after the defeat to Hull, branding him “too big for his boots”. Or socks, considering he likes to wear his in the Jack Grealish style - one of Dewsbury-Hall’s features for which I have an irrational hatred. Yet just 2 games later, I was praising him for stepping up.
Maybe that just says everything you need to say about him so far this season? Too inconsistent. Particularly for a player who openly says he wants to be the main man. *insert joke about going for Sunday lunch with his mate Maddison here*
When Dewsbury-Hall does something good, it's often really good. But when it's bad, it's inexcusably bad. Is that what you want from a key player?
Walking away from stadiums discussing the games with friends, I can recall far more times where we found ourselves saying “what on earth was KDH doing there?” than referring to moments of brilliance. I'm not sure this stat will catch on like xG but we can try it.
For me, to reach the CPOTS standard you have to be a minimum 7/10 almost every game, with 8 or 9s more regularly, whereas this particular candidate can throw a strong 4/10 just as you think his form is improving.
The running man
Breaking it down, Dewsbury-Hall has scored in just 3 games (including 2 braces). Enzo hit the nail on the head when he spoke about him shooting from everywhere to try and make an impact in the early games of the season. It felt like he was trying too hard.
Once Maresca called that out, he suddenly started finding killer passes and improved performances, which made me think we could have CPOTS material on our hands and maybe I'd been too quick to criticise.
Questionable social media post about Maddison’s departure aside, Dewsbury-Hall fits the mould for a fan favourite: local lad; came through the academy; runs a lot (the latter being a key attribute for a Leicester fan love-in).
With that in mind, and as a fellow left-footed central midfielder, I find myself wanting to love him, but regularly completely frustrated by his performances
Dewsbury-Hall's energy is a key feature and it gives him so much credit in the bank that many fans turn a blind eye to his weaker attributes. He works hard - I don't think anyone would begrudge him that - but I always worry if that's a player's best attribute.
Ball carrying is certainly an underrated part of his game. It seems effortless at times where he'll drive us up the pitch. Either that or he's just fortuitously chasing his first touch.
I do also believe he genuinely cares about playing a big part in turning things around for the club, which was all we asked for after last season.
Decision time
Dewsbury-Hall’s return of 5 goals and 6 assists from 16 games looks impressive, particularly considering his record up until the summer. However, does it give the full picture of his performances?
A concern for Leicester this season has been not finishing teams off. For all of Dewsbury-Hall’s goals and assists, he's also fluffed twice as many good positions with poor decision-making.
Irrespective of the overall performances though, if he continues on the form in terms of statistics, the argument in his favour will strengthen.
It reminds me somewhat of Harvey Barnes last season - people would lose their minds at Barnes being frustrating to watch, yet he ended up with 16 goal involvements for the season which ultimately earned him a £40million move.
The first names on the teamsheet
It's harder to quantify the roles of some players with classic G+A stats. Rather, it comes from watching them week in, week out to see their contributions and importance to the team.
Ricardo Pereira, Harry Winks and even Mads Hermansen are 3 names that would make it to the teamsheet sooner than Dewsbury-Hall for me - there are arguments for a few others too.
In fact, I'd question how much the system would falter if Dewsbury-Hall was sidelined for a period, whereas without Ricardo and Winks I think we'd crumble.
And regardless of this hypothetical scenario, both of those players are far more technically gifted than Dewsbury-Hall. I'm sure he'd be the first to admit that, yet both seem almost completely under the radar across the rest of the league.
Dewsbury-Hall has his qualities and role for this team. I'm just still coming to terms with how highly-rated he is across the board considering some of the basics he performs so poorly and the lack of coverage some others get.
My final point is simple: someone with as poor a first touch as Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall simply cannot be named Championship Player of the Season. But if we win the league, just watch it happen.
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:
