September 27, (THEWILL) – While stars of the Super Eagles attacking frontline, such as Napoli’s Victor Osimhen and Racing Genk’s Paul Onuachu, have been eliciting rave reviews with the form they are in with the October Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers in view, the same cannot be said of Kelechi Iheanacho of the English Premier League side Leicester City.
Unfortunately, while he has shown every readiness to keep up his impressive stats from last season, a change of formation by manager Brendan Rodgers has not helped his cause.
Rodgers has fallen back to his preferred 4-2-3-1 or 4-4-1-1 formation, with the return of the previously injured James Maddison and Harvey Barnes, in whose absence he played a 3-5-2 formation that reserved a place for Iheanacho and allowed the Nigerian to shine brilliantly in the starting lineup.
This formation alteration has denied Iheanacho a starting position in all six Premier League games played so far. The only time he started was in the UEFA Europa League game against Osimhen’s Napoli and in the Carabao Cup clash against Millwall, both of which Iheanacho gave a solid account of his difference-making in the team.
Rodgers does not consider Iheanacho a playmaker in the mould of Maddison and would rather play Maddison in the role as he has the irreplaceable Jamie Vardy occupying the single striker position he prefers to play his team around. However, the squad has not been as efficient as it was last season while Maddison was sidelined and Iheanacho was running rings around defenses and scoring with Vardy.
Despite having fewer minutes this season, Iheanacho has been the better player with a much better impact as a substitute than Maddison has been as a starter. Recently, Iheanacho entered the game against Burnley to set up Vardy’s equaliser for their 2-2 draw, while Maddison was largely ineffective when he came on for Ademola Lookman later on in the match.
With all the minutes that Maddison has had over Iheanacho, the Nigerian has had three more goalscoring chances created by his industry in the final third while Maddison has only managed to create one. The argument to have Iheanacho function with the new formation was made most by the Nigerian’s display against Napoli.
In a rare first XI start this season, the 24-year-old featured in a supporting striker role and excelled brightly, seamlessly advancing the team’s play, sometimes dropping deep to collect the ball and acting as the creative outlet for the Foxes wingers to maintain the pressure on Napoli. He topped this performance with a fine assist for Barnes to double their lead.
As the team’s overall performance has dipped with only two wins of their six league games so far, it is baffling that Rodgers has not unleashed one of his best striking options on the rest of their opposing teams to get the best of Iheanacho to the benefit of their season at home and in Europe, even if Iheanacho helped secure one win and avoid another defeat for the team.
The club offered the Nigerian an improved contract and an extension of his time with the East Midlands club until 2024 for the season he had that included Player of the Month for his scintillating display in March. That ought to count for much more than starting on the bench when he has shown to be a difference-maker in game after game.
His acute lack of playing minutes has not helped his consistency and has restricted the serial goal-scorer to just one assist in the six matches of the EPL so far played. As the international break approaches, the player, who scored both of Nigeria’s goals against Liberia in the Group C Qatar 2022 World Cup qualifiers, will be itching to be given the time to demonstrate that he can fit into Rodgers’ formation and give the team a better shot at climbing up the table.
He has shown he can do it before. Iheanacho scored 19 goals in 39 appearances across all competitions last season to end the 2020/2021 campaign as the top scorer for Rodgers’ side to stake his claims for a regular shirt in the first XI in the matchday squad, but the circumstances in the squad have not been in favour of the Leicester striker with the most goals, 21 so far, in this calendar year.
The Nigeria international, who set a Premier League record of scoring for every day of the week in one season and whose strikes have been significant for the Foxes, deserves a lot more than what has been the case this season.
Iheanacho’s brace in Leicester’s 3-1 win over Manchester United in the quarter-finals of the FA Cup last season sent the club to the semi-finals of the competition for the first time since the 1981/1982 campaign. On April 18, Iheanacho again made history by scoring the only goal in a 1-0 win over Southampton in the FA Cup semi-final at Wembley Stadium to secure Leicester’s first FA Cup final since 1969.
He also came off the bench to score the winning goal in the Community Shield game against last season league champions, Manchester City.
It will be disappointing if Rodgers sticks to this substitute role while the team wallows in the lower half of the table.
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
