It’s safe to say that Ayoze Pérez hasn’t endured the best season for Leicester City in more ways than one. Some Leicester City fans may say that’s putting it lightly, judging at the amount of flak he has received on Twitter. Yet, does Ayoze Pérez deserve the wrath of the Leicester fanbase, or is he being scapegoated?
How has he performed on the pitch?
In 2019/20, Pérez wasn’t awful with 8 goals and 4 assists in 2020 minutes. Considering he was played in an unfamiliar RW position most of the time, this is a decent although unspectacular return. At times, we saw flashes of a quality player, with a standout display in the infamous victory against Southampton.
This season, things haven’t been nearly as rosy, and there is no defending Pérez’s extremely poor output. For someone who cost £30 million, he’s only scored 2 times (with a sole assist) in 25 appearances. When looking at the quality of chances he has received, Ayoze would be expected to score 4 goals, showing a worrying underperformance.
When Pérez has been played in his favoured ’10’ position, he has been reasonably effective, scoring a 7.27 average rating on Whoscored. The issue is that he doesn’t get to play here a lot due to the prowess of James Maddison. To his credit, Pérez possesses excellent feet, and an ability to get out of tight spaces, which is sometimes overlooked. Furthermore, ‘Ayo’ always brings hard work, which is always appreciated. For example, his efforts helped bring about that Youri Tielemans howitzer through the closing down of Reece James.
On pitch performance (continued)
Unfortunately, hard work without sufficient quality is simply not enough. Pérez seems to go missing too much and there are many games where he hasn’t contributed enough going forward, ultimately reflected in his poor output. If anything sums up his season, it would be that miss against Chelsea. Granted, the team performance was poor, but a player of Pérez’s position and quality should have scored this chance. Yet he didn’t, and this is the most referenced ‘flashpoint’ which cost LCFC the £40m jackpot of UCL football, as well as haunting many Leicester fans.
The infamous COVID-party
Now, this is where the party gets started. Excusing the pun, Ayoze can be handed chief blame for his frankly absurd decision to host a house party during a global pandemic. It’s bad enough that anyone would decide to do this in these circumstances, but being a footballer is a massive privilege. With great privilege comes responsibility as role models, which Pérez failed to uphold in this instance.
The fewer details said about this the better, but it had a massive psychological effect on the team and probably on the rest of the season. In the game against West Ham, the blame for this defeat can probably be mostly laid at Pérez’s door, with the absence of both Pérez and Maddison stifling LCFC’s creativity. To make matters worse, Pérez did not make up for his error in either apology or in performance which is why he has lost a lot of his popularity with the fanbase. Furthermore, it’s no coincidence that team performances never recovered after this scandal, and this represents another nail in the Champions League coffin.
Pérez the scapegoat?
This brings us to the final question, how much is Pérez responsible for LCFC failing to get top 4? He certainly contributed to two major events in Leicester’s top-four push. These being the COVID party and his horrendous miss against Chelsea.
Nevertheless, there are so many games where Leicester City should have won but didn’t. Pérez cannot be blamed for this, after all, football is a team game. With LCFC one point behind Chelsea, in theory only one more win would have been necessary to secure UCL. Therefore, many games could be seen as the ‘tipping point’ such as the Newcastle debacle and the struggles at Southampton.
In defence of Pérez, even the heroic Kasper Schmeichel could be blamed for the late collapse, for it was his mistake that effectively cost Leicester City the Champions League, yet Schmeichel has more than outweighed this with his other contributions.
Regardless, this cannot take away from the fact that Ayoze Pérez was poor this season and greatly contributed to bottling the top four. Given his price tag, the lack of returns also makes this even more disappointing, and he may have received even harsher treatment if he played for a different club. Although Leicester City fans have been patient with the Spaniard despite his indifferent form, the events of April and May have eroded the already limited goodwill. Indeed, Pérez will have a tough job to convince his many critics. It’s a principle that you support your players, and FoL also believes this, yet patience in this sense is finite. If Ayoze needs any advice on how to redeem himself, then he need only ask Kelechi Iheanacho…
What does the future hold for Ayoze at Leicester City?
Due to the breach of trust, it’s doubtful that Pérez is in Rodgers’ good books, even if the matter is now closed. With his favoured number 10 position occupied by Maddison, it’s unlikely Ayo will see much game time there. A right-winger will probably be signed, so Pérez probably won’t spend many minutes there either, condemning him to the role of a bit-part utility man.
There are probably many LCFC fans that would want to sell him, and he probably should be sold if a reasonable offer comes in for him. In reality, however, clubs are unlikely to shell out upwards of £20m for a player in poor form, especially in the current economic climate. Resultantly, the only solution for Pérez is to get his head down and work hard to prove himself once again, which will take some doing.