Leicester’s three best performing players from October

Daniel Amartey 

Premier League winner. FA Cup winner. The best centre back on this planet. Big Daniel Amartey has had a super month.

Now, the way I usually write and plan these articles is to analyse two or three key moments in the month that really show how good a player has been. For a striker that is easy, just choose three goals. For an attacker it’s easy, just choose three assists or runs. For most standout defenders it is easy, just choose three key blocks and maybe a goal from a set-piece. Daniel Amartey poses a new challenge for me.

There aren’t any matches per se in which Amartey has completely dominated the game or made the pitch his own. Leicester also haven’t kept a clean sheet this month, so there goes another talking point. But Amartey has been brilliant overall.

He started the season as a starting centre-back alongside Soyuncu but was then dropped for the incoming Jannik Vestergaard. The Danish centre-half then proceeded to have a… challenging start to his Leicester career, and so Amartey was reinstated in his role in the starting XI to face Manchester United. Jonny Evans’ return also meant that Leicester could play their favoured back three, with Amartey strongest in a three-man defence.

Since then, Amartey has been an ever-present in the Foxes side starting in three of Leicester’s four wins. Arsenal game aside, the backline looks much smoother with a back three, and with Amartey in it.

It’s not been plain sailing for Amartey in his Leicester career, he arrived in January transfer window in 2016, but the squad cohesion was so well glued together at that point that Claudio Ranieri didn’t often use the Ghanaian international. Though, Amartey can say he was part of a historic Premier League winning side.

When he arrived at Leicester after a £5million transfer from Danish giants FC Copenhagen, his best position wasn’t clear. Initially he was deployed as a CDM – especially after Kante left and Mendy was injured quickly into his debut season in 2016/17.

Amartey was then used as a right back by Claude Puel took charge of the Foxes and was a frequent starter in the 2018/19 season. This progress was cruelly halted after a horrific ankle break in the 1-1 draw with West Ham on 27th October 2018. His injury would have been a bigger story for Leicester that night, if not for the following tragic events that took the life of Khun Vichai and four others.

The injury left Amartey missing the rest of the season, as well as the whole of the 2019/20 season. He returned to the squad in September 2020 in the Carabao Cup loss to Arsenal, in which he started as a right back. A few days later and he was starting in a back three to face Manchester City in the Etihad in an outstanding 5-2 win. Since then, he has been used increasingly often, featuring throughout the FA Cup winning campaign.

It’s been a long and frustrating journey for him, but finally Amartey is having the run of games and the run of performances that he knows he can deliver. He has been solid this season and is not the reason for the defensive woes that Leicester have suffered. After £15m spent on Vestergaard, it turns out that the true solution was hiding in plain sight.