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By Anthony Nlebem.
Leicester City midfielder, Wilfred Ndidi, looks set to make his 180th Premier League appearance for the Foxes when they host Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday (today) at the King Power stadium.
Should he feature in the encounter, the game will also be his 225th appearance for Leicester City since he joined club from Belgian outfit Genk in January 2017.
The game will also be his 10th game against the visitors and he has started all the nine games he has featured in so far against the north London side.
The 26-year-old missed Leicester’s last two games due to injury but his club coach Brendan Rodgers revealed that the Nigerian midfielder is in contention to feature in the encounter.
“Ndidi is back in training and hopefully should be fine for the weekend,” said Rodgers.
Not too long ago, Ndidi was one of the first names on City’s team sheet, with results dropping off considerably when he was unavailable. Now, he faces a real battle to regain his starting spot, especially with Soumare back fit from next week too. Proving he can keep the ball and serve it forward will be vital to him getting his place back.
Rodgers said, “The one thing I would say is you need to be able to win the ball in the midfield, but you also need to be able to keep it. That’s key.
“The strength of any of my midfield has been about the three players. They have to look after each other. Whatever the balance is, you need to win the ball back. But that will also come from the top of the field, it’s a collective effort for everyone to defend. You need to have that pressure high up the pitch and the support behind that.
“It’s not a necessity, but ideally, you would have one with a specific role to win the ball. But that person winning the ball has to be able to pass the ball as well and play forward.
“If you make it too defensive, you end up playing sideways and backwards too much. Over the next couple of weeks, we’ll have lots of options in there to do what it is we need to do.”
However, when explaining what his ideal midfield looks like, Rodgers seemed to suggest the attributes provided by Tielemans, Dewsbury-Hall, and Maddison are the right fit. Whether that changes to face a team with the attacking quality Spurs have remains to be seen.
The Nigerian has featured 14 times for the Foxes this term and has started 10 of the games.