3 Things to know about Leicester transfer target Joyskim Dawa

Seven games played, six points gained - two points off Manchester United - and sitting 15th outside of the relegation zone with a tough run of games yet to come. The Foxes are in a position they must maintain. Steve Cooper has struggled to keep clean sheets of late, and this is where Leicester will look to reinforce: at the back.

During the winter transfer window, Leicester City will be looking for defensive talent that can come in and solve a problem. What we have seen is a lack of consistent pressure from a central defender on pacy attackers: as such, the Foxes have conceded goals mainly due to their defenders being exposed and giving too much time and space to those players to attack Mads Hermansen’s goal.

Why Leicester City want Joyskim Dawa

Joyskim Dawa is a most intriguing prospect. The Cameroon central defender is not young - he is 28 years old - and nor particularly pacy. The player instead offers Cooper’s squad defensive knowledge and positional excellence less seen among younger talents: Dawa knows where to stand to get in the way, to apply pressure, or to make the final block. You can see from his heat map in his domestic league that the player will not stand in one place without any consideration of other duties or spaces left under-staffed.

In essence, from a stylistic standpoint the player is reminiscent of Jannik Vestergaard. Dawa often progresses forward and on the counter offers an option to maraud into the midfield position before laying the ball off for someone else to do the creative part of the job. So, defensively, the talent would bring positional awareness; offensively, progression from defence. A stylistic fit for what the side are currently missing.

Add onto this that Leicester City’s plan seems to include having significantly more experience in the team rather than opting for exciting young prospects, and you can see why a 28-year-old is a target. Not too young as to be inexperienced and require significant adjustment to the Premier League, but not too old as to offer only a couple years of service. Dawa can be a squad player for quite a few more years.

Whether his supposed quality translates from his current league to English football remains to be seen. However, Leicester are not alone in at least monitoring the Cameroonian defender’s progress: Leeds United and Everton - one a Championship team struggling to keep out goals, the other a Premier League team in the same boat - are equally interested. If three sides all with clean sheet problems are looking at the same talent, then it is clear there is a reason for it.

The only point remaining to consider would be the value of the player to sign - certainly too cheap to loan. Obviously, not coming from a top five European league, Dawa would not be expensive to acquire. Roughly £4m is the reported release clause, and Transfermarkt rate the CB for around £1.25m, so expect Leicester to play around £3-5m depending on changes which happen due to the positive run of form the defender is on.