With last season’s breakthrough season, big things were expected from Caglar Soyuncu. Did he improve on last season and what might the future hold at Leicester City for the man joyfully hailed as Lord Farquaad (from Shrek)? Damon Carter takes a look and finds out.
Caglar Soyuncu of Leicester City
Leicester City stats:
Appearances total – 32 – Premier League – 23 / FA Cup – 6 / Europa League – 3 / EFL Cup – 0
Goal total – 1
Moment to savour – The headed winner at Old Trafford
Moment to forget – All 90 minutes of a disastrous performance at home to Newcastle United
Caglar Soyuncu was a revelation in 2019/2020. This was partly due to seeing how average the 85 million pound man Harry Maguire had gone on to be at Manchester United at the same time. This season it’s probably more accurate to say that Soyuncu at Leicester City hasn’t necessarily built on the promise he showed, whilst Maguire’s worth at Old Trafford has increased significantly.
Despite an initial solid start to his season with 3 wins from 4, he tore his abductor muscle in October. He would then not feature for Leicester City bizarrely until a freezing cold game in Ukraine in December, which further aggravated the abductor issue putting his road to recovery back until the new year. Incidentally, he would not complete a full 90 minutes until late January in an FA Cup win at Brentford (how good does that result now seem against the newly promoted West-Londoners?).
These injuries could well be what contributed to form that seemed to stagnate. But the issues that Soyuncu has had this season are not necessarily all due to injury problems. His tendency to be cute with Cruyff-turns along the back cost him dearly at home to Newcastle (more on that match later), as was his ability to try and get himself out of problems of his own making with an erratic style of aggressive defending that bizarrely heralded very few tackles won (incidentally he’s lower than James Maddison for Premier League tackles this season).
Turkey’s stalwart’s ability on crosses for such a physical presence needs more work, as too often he is rooted to the spot when marking attackers. costing Leicester City in three of those opening four games against Burnley, Manchester City, and most tellingly West Ham United.
His attitude is normally spot on apart from a dreadful display of defending against Newcastle at The King Power – watch him trotting back gently as Callum Wilson fired Newcastle further ahead (rarely has a performance annoyed so many Leicester City fans). His almost hilarious guard of honour for Gareth Bale in the closing minutes of the season against Spurs was possibly even more alarming.
Positional sense needs much work, and that is to be expected with the number of times Brendan Rodgers has switched between different backline styles. But Rodgers is showing no signs of changing this methodology and this will be something Soyuncu will quickly need to get up to speed on.
But in fairness Its a fine line – quite literally in some cases. In the FA Cup Final, it was Soyuncu’s high line that caught former fox Ben Chilwell marginally offside to deny Chelsea an equaliser. You could argue he wasn’t as high as he should have been, but on this occasion, he did just enough and also contributed to a tight display that kept a clean sheet and won Leicester City their first FA Cup in their history.
I’m aware that this sounds like a battering of the normally imperious Turkish International but this is only because of the high standards he set himself in the previous season and he just hasn’t reached those heights. If he could reach the heights he literally soared to when heading in the winner at Old Trafford but more from a defensive and away from goal style, then maybe this would be a more glowing review.
The reality is that in many games, he has been solid but rarely has he excelled and dominated the backline in the same way as Wesley Fofana and Jonny Evans. For some reason, the late-season appearance of Callum Wilson seems to send his erratic tendencies into overdrive costing Leicester too dearly (Bournemouth 4-1, lest we forget). Hopefully, his third full season will see those erratic displays consigned to history. With Centre backs rumoured to be coming in, Soyuncu will need to raise his game quickly to ensure he keeps his first-team place.
The Future – A key part of the Leicester City centre-backs, but much improvement will be needed in the future for further Leicester City success and big club rumours. Rating 6.5/10