How many Leicester City players would you trust in the Premier League?
Ten points clear in January - it’s only natural to start thinking about which of Leicester City’s current players can make the step up. Just two? Or closer to ten?
While Enzo Maresca and his players repeat the age-old, and correct, mantra of taking each game as it comes, Leicester City fans are free to have different conversations.
The start to the season was so good that one question began to surface remarkably early in my mind - how many of these players could we trust in a Premier League starting eleven?
Two or three months in, I remember thinking that it wouldn't be many, and that our dominance merely underlined the massive gulf between the Premier League and the Championship.
We were winning almost every week without playing particularly well. The style of play and the ability and pedigree of several members of a squad that should never have been relegated meant we were able to get results.
There's been a shift over the past couple of months. Performances have improved, and we were already on course for a record points total. We've started conceding more often, but the attack feels transformed.
So where I might have only trusted three or four players to make the step back up to the big time before the hectic winter schedule, now that number has grown. A lot.
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This is why many fans were itching for an FA Cup fourth round tie against a bottom-half Premier League team, as one small but tangible way of testing just how big the gap is for our current players.
When I asked the rest of the TFW writing team what they thought, there were just two players who made everyone's list of definites: Mads Hermansen and Ricardo Pereira.
A lot of players then went into a pile listed "Probably": James Justin, Wout Faes, Harry Winks, Wilfred Ndidi, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Stephy Mavididi, Abdul Fatawu, Patson Daka and Kelechi Iheanacho all got mentions here, alongside one that "could do a job" - the perennial utility man Hamza Choudhury.
So if we had to field a team against top flight opposition right now, and that team involved Hermansen in goal, a back four including Ricardo, Faes, Doyle and Justin, Winks behind Dewsbury-Hall and Ndidi in midfield and a front three of Mavididi, Fatawu and either Daka or Cannon... would you be fearing the worst?
I wouldn't.
The centre-back and central midfield positions would need looking at, but another few months of the Enzo system will stand everyone in good stead.
Hermansen's quality has been evident from day one, and we know that a fully-fit Ricardo can cope with the Premier League. Winks simply looks like a Premier League player at Championship level and Dewsbury-Hall is growing in stature, providing goals and assists at a promising rate.
There are more question marks over the likes of James Justin and Wout Faes, but both have experience of the league. Meanwhile, the only worry over Callum Doyle, if signed permanently, would be lack of pace - he looks like a perfect fit for top-level football from a technical perspective.
It goes without saying that Jannik Vestergaard would have the same problem, despite looking like a colossus in the Championship. He is probably the key player to replace given his importance to the system.
There's also the contract situation for previous Premier League performers in Wilfred Ndidi, Kelechi Iheanacho and, of course, Jamie Vardy.
Looking at the rest of the squad, it's early days for a lot of these players and some still have to prove themselves at Championship level, never mind the Premier League.
But even from the least experienced, there are signs of the confidence required - in Tom Cannon's answers about what he would bring to the team, in Abdul Fatawu's decision to stay with the club instead of heading off to the AFCON, in the way the younger players stuck to the style of play at Millwall even when under pressure and the way they're all making it work.
Attack, attack, attack
Either our wingers have been revolutionised by the introduction of Patson Daka and Cannon, or we've just had a run of games against weaker opposition. It's hard to say, and the next two games, against two of the better teams in the division, will tell us a lot more.
Leicester have scored 17 goals in the past 7 games against opponents with an average league position of 17. In the previous 7 games, against opponents with an average league position of 13, we scored just 7 times.
Cannon's impact in his first two starts has been magnificent, while Daka previously scored 4 times and assisted twice in his 6 games before flying out to join his Zambian team-mates.
Stephy Mavididi has 6 goals in his past 7 games, almost equalling his tally of 7 goal contributions in the first 19. He fully deserved his award as the Championship’s Player of the Month for December.
Abdul Fatawu could easily have made the shortlist too. After 3 goal contributions in his first 14 appearances, Fatawu has registered 6 assists in his past 7 games. This run also includes the Millwall home game, in which his first half display was so dangerous Millwall had to substitute their left-back, and the Ipswich game when he was played virtually at right-back and defended surprisingly well.
In fact, I've looked at Mavididi, Fatawu and Cannon in recent weeks and seen shades of our former heroes at Premier League level.
The way Mavididi curled in goals at Birmingham and Ipswich was reminiscent of Harvey Barnes. Fatawu has provided the kind of left-footed end product from the right wing that can only remind you of a certain Algerian - and it isn't Rachid Ghezzal. Cannon's past two goals have obviously been Vardy-esque.
Those aren't the standards required just yet, but we're starting to see which players could make the step up. Two televised games, a derby against an in-form team and a first versus second clash, will be a huge indication of how much is required in the current transfer window to make sure we stay ahead of the pack.
