3 Things learned as Leicester draw with Everton

There’s no space for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall

When Wilfred Ndidi was sacrificed with the scores level last night in favour of Patson Daka, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall must have known that he was not going to see any action for his boyhood club. The midfield trio at that point was James Maddison, Youri Tielemans and Boubakary Soumare, none of which would have been appropriate to take out of the game, the latter of which would not be a viable sub for Dewsbury-Hall in that case anyway.

Now an unused substitute for two consecutive games, the Shepshed-born midfielder is finding it difficult to cement a place in the first team under the new management of Dean Smith. After showing promise against Wolves with plenty of energy and harrying the away defenders into giving the ball away, ‘KDH’ exhibited his tendency to make simple mistakes in possession that stalled momentum at times.

Smith’s decision to deploy Soumare and Ndidi last night was correct, given the system that his opposite number deploys at Everton and that extra bit of height that was required. Dewsbury-Hall is a good impact substitute if one wishes to increase the tempo, but as Smith alerted to in his post-match interview, the game was already far more open and end-to-end than he would have wished.