Voulez-vous plus? Why I’m ready to crown Leicester City’s Player of the Season
I don’t usually like discussing the Player of the Season before the season finishes, because it’s too early. But after what happened on Tuesday night, it’s also already too late.
In the wake of last Saturday’s victory over West Bromwich Albion, I wanted to write about my nailed-on vote for Player of the Season. What held me back was the fear this player might then give away a penalty or score an own goal three days later against Southampton.
He didn’t.
He laid the ball on a plate for Jamie Vardy to score. He worked hard in defence. Won duels against a man many outside of Leicester had been touting as the best full-back in the division. When Southampton swapped their full-backs, he made the other one look stupid too.
At the final whistle, he danced in front of the Union FS section and encapsulated the mood of a whole fanbase. It’s tempting to go one further and say, judging by the way his song was blasting out of every other car crawling along Jarrom Street after the game, the mood of a whole city.
Do you want more?
He also scored one of the best hat-tricks in Leicester City’s recent history.
A star is born?
In any sane world, this would be the night that Abdul Fatawu truly announced himself to the wider world.
But this world is obsessed with the Premier League and so the only talk to get any traction was the 5-0 win at the Emirates on the same night rather than the one that meant so much to us. Which is fine. We don’t want the word getting out too far.
This is, nevertheless, the kind of performance that would have made people working at Premier League clubs sit up and take notice.
When I was at university, my Arsenal-supporting housemate used to yell at the TV whenever Thierry Henry won a tackle: “That’s it! That’s the extra 5%! He’s the complete player!” I was reminded of this when suddenly, on one glorious night, Fatawu’s shots were all sailing into the top corner rather than row P. It felt like this had been the only thing missing.
Much like earlier in the season when we’d been waiting to trounce someone 5-0, we’d also been waiting for Fatawu to find his shooting boots. Hopefully this gives him, his manager and the fans the confidence that he can achieve this on a regular basis.
Let’s not get carried away with a potential one-off though, either for an individual or the team. Let’s pick out some of the lowest points of the season - at Coventry, at Leeds, at Millwall. I’m also going to throw Chelsea in there.
Coventry: exactly what Enzo Maresca is talking about when he references Fatawu’s age. The impetuousness of youth. You could see what was going to happen before it happened, and we’d also had some earlier forewarnings such as the pretty awful tackle Fatawu put in at Birmingham. All you can do is learn from these experiences, and it’s fair to say Fatawu has.
Leeds: in a game Leicester dominated for 80 minutes, Fatawu barely touched the ball. When he did, he made the wrong decision including one particularly ludicrous shot from distance when well placed. This was partly down to his defensive duties that night, but it also felt like the kind of game where we were desperate for him to seize control and show what he can do. Again, learn from the experience - the next time we came up against one of the best sides in the division, he put them to the sword.
Millwall: the game that showed just how important Fatawu is, because he didn’t start and we were dreadful. Vardy was a complete passenger and we carried almost no attacking threat against a team we’d beaten twice already. When Fatawu did come on, the game was transformed and we should have come away with at least a point.
This game demonstrated what our team looks like without Fatawu’s pace, energy and ability to beat a man. The particularly galling aspect of his being dropped for this game was the devastation he caused against Millwall at home, which caused their left-back to be substituted at half time.
At Chelsea, Stephy Mavididi had just equalised when Fatawu was withdrawn. Leicester’s attacking threat went out of the window and when Callum Doyle was sent off ten minutes later, so did our chances of progressing to a Wembley semi-final.
There was also a glimpse on Tuesday night of what a team without Fatawu’s qualities looks like, because Southampton posed no problems for us. They passed and passed without getting the wrong side of our defence.
The question is really what Fatawu does after he beats his man.
The creator
Until Tuesday, that Millwall home game had been his most energising display of the season. But there was also his assist for Patson Daka at home to Plymouth, his two brilliantly timed through balls for the first two goals at Birmingham and the inch-perfect pass to Vardy for a crucial equaliser at Hull.
There was that moment in the home defeat to Leeds when he flicked the ball over his marker on the touchline and struck the bar with a ferocious effort from outside the box. There was, of course, that goal at Bournemouth, which is one of the top contenders for goal of the season.
These all sound like moments rather than a whole season worth of brilliance but they’re backed up with numbers. Not just the 12 assists, but the chances that have been missed. And not just attacking numbers either.
Let’s take big chances, something Opta defines as “a situation where a player should reasonably be expected to score, usually in a one on one scenario or from very close range when the ball has a clear path to goal and there is low to moderate pressure on the shooter”. Fatawu has created 30 for his team-mates, 8 more than anyone else in the league and 13 more than the Championship Player of the Season, Crysencio Summerville.
Another reasonable measure of output would be goals and assists per 90, minus penalties. Fatawu’s figure is 0.60 which is comparable to Summerville’s 0.65 and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall’s 0.62. He hasn’t been mentioned in many of the wider discussions about the best player at our club, let alone the league, this season. He deserves to be part of that conversation.
The reason we’re using per 90 metrics here is because Fatawu didn’t start until the 8th game of the season. He’s only played 2,678 minutes compared to Summerville’s 3,330 and Dewsbury-Hall’s 3,620. Luckily, Leicester were edging through games in those first seven games without Fatawu’s output to call upon.
Putting the work in
So let’s look at the numbers out of possession, where creative wingers are so often a write-off. Compared to Dewsbury-Hall, Fatawu has won double the number of tackles per 90. And far more than Summerville too. He averages 7.01 touches in the defensive third per 90 compared with Summerville’s 4.22.
Incredibly, Fatawu has also attempted and won more tackles won per 90 than Kyle Walker-Peters, the full-back he faced on Tuesday. While this is partly due to Southampton’s possession-heavy style, we’re still talking about a winger effectively doing two jobs in a team that is extremely possession-heavy itself.
And, of course, Walker-Peters comes nowhere near Fatawu on attacking output, his numbers at just one-third of Fatawu’s big chances and one-quarter of Fatawu’s assists. That goals and assists minus penalties per 90 number for Walker-Peters - just 0.10.
Source: FotMob (per 90 comparison to similar players in same league)
The picture that emerges is of a genuine athlete with a remarkable first touch, an ability to beat his man and to create, but also a one-man right hand side who defends as well as attacks. This makes sense given the Maresca approach of inverting a right-back into midfield in possession and needing cover down that side.
Source: FotMob (comparison to similar players in similar leagues)
To ask this of a then 19-year-old setting out on his first full season at senior level seems a leap - but that’s something Fatawu can do too. Because where Fatawu has come in extremely handy this season has been his aerial ability at both ends of the pitch. It goes without saying that his success in aerial duels is better than all the other players mentioned so far. In fact, it’s almost identical to Wilfred Ndidi’s career record.
All of this is before you even get onto the infectious enthusiasm that has clearly been a big part of the dressing room this season. This has helped to forge a connection with a crowd that has been on the edge of turning on the players, the manager and the club at various points for various reasons.
There’s also an unquantifiable importance, that won’t be summarised by any numbers or metrics, to the buzz factor - that feeling that Julian Joachim, Emile Heskey and Riyad Mahrez gave us, that something would happen when they got the ball. That feeling that’s so addictive that when it didn’t happen enough for our liking recently, it ended up with Wout Faes cupping his ear to the crowd. We want Abdul on the ball time and time and time again. And we haven’t had enough of this type of player for years.
The question is obviously whether we can keep him - which sums up the uncertainty of the past few weeks, quite at odds with the exuberance of Tuesday night and the prospect of promotion. There’s an underlying nervousness about the club’s situation.
But that can wait. Put some ABBA on, and revel in the fact you’re seeing one of the greatest seasons a teenager has ever produced for Leicester City Football Club. Abdul Fatawu won’t win the club’s Player of the Season award, but he couldn’t have done much more. And it’ll be exciting to see where his career takes him. I just hope he spends as much of it as possible in Leicester blue.
