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Leicester City’s midfield options after signing Boubakary Soumare

By Elliot Mackness

Boubakary Soumare of LOSC Lille and now Leicester City (Photo by Gerrit van Keulen/BSR Agency/Getty Images)
Boubakary Soumare of LOSC Lille and now Leicester City (Photo by Gerrit van Keulen/BSR Agency/Getty Images) /
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Boubakary Soumare of LOSC Lille and now Leicester City (Photo by Gerrit van Keulen/BSR Agency/Getty Images) /

Leicester City have completed the signing of Boubakary Soumare, the French International, having a scarily good midfield next season. Here is what it looks like.

From box-to-box to advanced playmakers and disruptive midfielders, Leicester City will have among the most balanced midfields in the league. Adding depth and a winning mentality to an already strong midfield.

In this piece, I’ll go through each midfield position and analyse the options available. Of course, I shall also decide who I’d pick in my starting XI.

To start us off, have a look at this from LCFC Live and divide them up into the three forces of play: defensive, progressive, and playmaking.

Leicester City: the defensive force

One name stands above the rest as the best out and out defensive midfielder at the King Power. His name is Wilfred Ndidi. He is an absolute beast and statistically amongst the best in Europe.

Using Sofascore, he has 3.7 tackles and 2.3 interceptions per Premier League game. Those are insane statistics. On top of this, using SmarterScout, we can see that Ndidi is perfectly suited to the role of a sole DM. His quantity and quality of tackling is what stands out among every other DM in Europe bar N’golo Kante.

Covering him shall be Nampalys Mendy and Hamza Choudhury, with Boubakary Soumare also being a decent CDM.

Mendy brings better ball retention and link up play, but lacks progression in his game. Meanwhile, Choudhury brings energy and disruption. These two play best as a double DM pivot. Choudhury would bring the progression, Mendy the possessive force in midfield.

Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester side will also have the choice of playing Soumare further back. This would take advantage of his disruptive capacity, though it would also take away his progressive attributes. Soumare’s dribbling through midfield has been brilliant this season.

So in reality, the King Power outfit can decide between two systems. The first is suited to Ndidi and the sole DM, whereas the second would be suited to a double pivot of Choudhury and Mendy. 4-3-3 versus 3-4-3 in effect.