Star Championship goalkeeper major Leicester transfer target

Although at the start of the 2022/23 season there was much talk about the goalkeeper situation currently occurring at Leicester City, fan-favourite and club captain Kasper Schmeichel moving on being the cornerstone of that conversation. Danny Ward stepped up into the No.1 spot and after a very nervy couple of months has made the position, not necessarily his own, yet he has made Foxes fans much less anxious about the situation.

However, it does seem very apparent that Ward unfortunately is not a long-term solution for Brendan Rodgers and the East Midlands club, with his lack of ability to play consistently with the ball at his feet. A Rodgers team is in need of a young modern-day goalkeeper in order to progress the side.

Enter 22-year-old Anthony Patterson. The Sunderland goalkeeper has been gathering some attention from Premier League sides due to his performances in the Championship this season. Playing 29 games in the country’s second division and conceding 33 goals for the Black Cats. The Sun has reported that both the Foxes and Wolverhampton Wanderers are considering to make a £10million summer bid for Patterson if they do not gain promotion to the Premier League.

Wolves see the Sunderland born goalkeeper as welcomed competition for Jose Sa, while City on the other hand are looking for the long-term first-choice goalkeeper. One which is more suited to Rodgers’ preferred style of play.

Despite Schmeichel himself, never being exceptional with his feet his overall goalkeeping ability was so outstanding at times that it did somewhat make the latter feel quite redundant in the grand scheme of things. What is clear now is that now there has been a drop off in shot-stopping ability while not much of a drop-off in ball playing ability, it does handcuff Leicester at times when trying to build up from the back with Ward’s inconsistencies when starting attacks from his feet.

Even though comparatively both Ward and Patterson have fairly similar pass completion rates: Ward 76 per cent, Patterson 66%. On the surface this seems as if Ward is in fact the superior passer, but in fact Patterson’s percentage is affected significantly with the amount of long passes and long balls he is forced to play due to system and opposition. Where even though the LCFC goalkeeper has attempted over 200 less long passes, he still has a worse completion rate than Patterson. It is also very likely that Rodgers believes due to his age there is much more room for improvement in the Sunderland-born man than comparatively the 29 soon to be 30-year-old Ward.

Logistically it appears to be the move to make and to demote Ward to the number two or to have them fight between them for the starting position as the Welshman and Iversen did at the start of this season. Either way, if the rumoured fee is accurate then it does seem a lot more promising and closer resembling the transfer policy that propelled the Foxes into becoming a contender in the first place.