Expert offers exclusive insight into Leicester signing Hermansen

After already having signed two defenders and one midfielder, new Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca has rounded out the new spine of his squad with Danish goalkeeper Mads Hermansen.

The reported £5million move from Danish Superliga club Brondby IF now makes the 23-year-old City’s fourth signing of the window. The young goalkeeper will be likely looked at as the potential new first-choice for this transformed Leicester City side. To understand the kind of profile, as well as what kind of person the Foxes have signed, FoL spoke with Danish Superliga and Brondby expert Toke Thilade to enlighten us on the new transfer.

Thilade spoke about his thoughts on the move for the 23-year-old as a whole, as well as Brondby’s history of producing goalkeepers:

"“I think it’s a really good move for Hermansen. Brondby has a long tradition of producing really good goalkeepers. Peter Schmeichel went from Brondby to Man United 30 years ago. But also, in recent years Frederik Ronnow who just qualified for the Champions League with Union Berlin and Lukas Hradecky the current goalkeeper of Bayer Leverkusen. So, there is definitely a tradition of them – Brondby – developing good goalkeepers”."

the writer broke down the strengths of Hermansen’s game including the maturity he has to his game:

"“He’s still only 23, so he’s very young. But he has never really seemed like a young player. He has never really been mistake prone, he plays like a seasoned pro who’s been in the game for a long time. He had the second most saves in the league over the past two seasons. As well as having the second highest save percentage last year in the league. He has great reflexes, and he is excellent in one-on-one situations. Which suits teams that play positionally high up on the pitch and who press high. Hermansen’s also pretty good with his feet, he can build it up from the back to a high level with good technique. Great shot stopper. Coming from Denmark, I think he should integrate well into English football”."

Being a young goalkeeper in a league like the Championship can be extremely taxing physically due to the playstyles of many of the teams in England’s second division. This is an area in which Theilade thinks Hermansen needs to improve on in order to have success next season:

"“One part of his game that would need to improve is, if you look at him, he can still grow physically, he can get even stronger. He’s good in the box, but I think championship is also a different level of physicality compared to the Superliga. So, if he can add a couple of kilos of muscle, that will be to his advantage. But he only just turned 23, so there’s plenty of time to grow that part of his game”."

When asked about how this transfer is being taken by Brondby and their fans he said:

"“I think generally there’s a lot of pride in selling to a club like Leicester because, although last year was not so good, they are still a huge club. With the history of them winning the league and having Schmeichel. There’s a little bit of a nice narrative going on there. I think some would have expected that he followed a similar route as the guys before him and moved to mid table club in Germany. But I actually think going to Leicester it’s much bigger than that, I think going to play in England and soon in the Premier League is where we all expected him to end up, going to a club this size I think is an excellent move”."

When asked about what a year in the Championship could do for the developmental side of Hermansen, as well as where his current standpoint in the Danish national set-up is, Theilade stated, “Definitely adjusting and taking a year in the championship that shouldn’t hurt him. It doesn’t hurt his chances to play on the national team either. He just became the third string goalkeeper behind Schmeichel who is 36 and Ronnow who is 30. I think he will end up as the number one within the next couple of years if he continues this current trend of growth”.

Theilade also believes this could be a shrewd bit of business by the Foxes, buying directly from the Superliga, “I think it’s a win-win and I think eventually you will look back at the deal and say, ‘okay that was actually really great deal’. Of course, it is good price for Brondby, but if you had let him go to say a German club and then bought him from there, you would’ve likely paid two or three times the price”.

Finally, Theilade gave his predictions on how he thinks Hermansen will cope with the pressures of coming to a club such as LCFC:

"“He’s coming from the biggest club in Denmark where there’s a huge amount of pressure. It’s been somewhat of a difficult past two-three seasons, and he has dealt really well with the pressure. So, it is not like he’s coming from a small club where he’s used to playing with no spectators and no media coverage. Brondby is the club that has the most headlines in in Denmark and the most fans across the country. There is a lot of pressure and a lot of attention on the players. So, I think that experience is to his advantage”."

The next few pre-season games will be extremely revealing to who will be the upcoming season’s No.1. Nonetheless it does seem as though the King Power side have wrangled themselves a ‘keeper to finally fill that Schmeichel filled hole between the sticks.