Leicester: Does Luke Thomas have a future as an England international?

For all the passing-based metrics, Thomas ranks highest in “progressive passes received” per 90, with 2.59 – placing him in the top 46%. Outside of that, he’s performing to the average of top 70% of full-backs, which isn’t damming for a player of his age/experience, but to find a space in the congested England squad he’ll need to be exceptional – and he’s not there yet.

Defensively, there’s a couple of metrics that Thomas does perform very well in – pressures and blocks. This definitely matches the eye-test, as his defensive style is to play touch-tight to his forward giving them no space to play (hence the high pressures numbers) – his 14.29 per 90 ranks him in the top 22%. For blocks, the perfect case study was in the Aston Villa game, as Thomas’ recovery to stop an inevitable goal from Bertrand Traoré was down to his impeccably timed block. Averaging 2.34 per 90, he’s ranked in the top 27%.

An interesting caveat is that Thomas’ style is similarly compared with Sergio Reguilón of Tottenham Hotspur. An aggressive, quick transitional full-back that offers good quality in-and-around the opposition box – something I feel Thomas emulates. Timothy Castagne is also considered somewhat of a stylistic match, although his assurance in possession (particularly in the middle third) is a side of the game that Leicester’s academy graduate needs to work on.

Overall, Thomas is definitely an exciting youth product, which has once again come through the Leicester City academy. If he can maintain the performance levels of his previous few games, he’ll be of interest to the England U21 setup – there’s no doubt about that. But, to be picked ahead of Ben Chilwell, Luke Shaw, Bukayo Saka (although I’d utilise him higher up), and Aaron Cresswell would be harsh to any of those individuals – in the future? There’s definitely a possibility.