Cole Palmer, Bukayo Saka, Mohamed Salah and Wilfred Ndidi. Asked to guess the odd one out, the Leicester City midfielder would seem to be the obvious answer.
But, right now, those are his peers. The quartet are the only four players in the Premier League to have at least three assists so far this season.
Ndidi catapulted himself alongside the high-profile stars with a brilliant brace of assists at Selhurst Park on Saturday. He showed determination and vision to win the ball from Adam Wharton and clip a pass through to Jamie Vardy for City’s first goal, while he showed awareness and composure to set up Stephy Mavididi for the second.
His first assist of the campaign came a fortnight earlier in slightly more fortuitous circumstances as he inadvertently headed Mavididi’s cross into the air against Aston Villa, Facundo Buonanotte volleying in when the ball came back down. That Ndidi is flying high in the assists charts does create an interesting dilemma ahead of this Saturday’s game against Everton (3pm kick-off).
On the back of a poor showing against Villa, Ndidi’s selection against Crystal Palace drew quizzical looks from some supporters and fury from others. He is ultimately seen as a conservative, defensive option.
While he is setting up goals, which is arguably the most important trait for an attacking midfield, Ndidi has been selected because he can defend from the front too. While those attributes were not seen against Villa, they were against Palace, Ndidi effective in putting the press on the Eagles’ back-line.
Ndidi’s display at Palace feels worthy of a continued stay in the line-up, but such a decision would still likely to lead to ire in some parts of the fanbase. Ndidi’s selection represents a certain gameplan that feels more focused on shutting down the opposition rather than taking the game to them. At home to Everton, the expectation will be that City play their way, and so fans will want manager Steve Cooper to pick a more natural attacking midfielder.
The Nigerian, despite his three assists, has only set up six chances, which puts him joint-28th in the Premier League. He has also benefited from strong finishing.
In any case, Cooper’s excuses won’t pass for a third straight game. In each of the past two outings, Buonanotte, a player City supporters have quickly warmed to thanks to his endeavour and impressive footwork, has been ruled out of the 11 with a slight injury. For both Villa and Palace, it emerged after the line-up had been announced that the club were managing issues around the Argentinian’s fitness and had taken a cautious, sensible approach. After the draw with Palace, Cooper said Buonanotte would be in contention to start against Everton.
Then there’s Bilal El Khannouss. His limited minutes so far have been explained, again quite reasonably, by his lack of training time with the group, given his late arrival and his trip away with Morocco. But ahead of Everton, he will get a full week’s work at Seagrave, just like every other player.
In pre-season, while Cooper ummed and aahed over certain questions on transfers, not willing to give away City’s hand, he was immediately very clear that he wanted attacking midfielders. He spoke of being forced to field players out of position in pre-season because deals hadn’t been done.
His transfer request was met and there’s no reason why those players now can’t start. If one of Buonanotte or El Khannouss are not going to be in the 11 against bottom-of-the-table Everton at home, when are they going to be? This is the sort of fixture that fans will expect City to attack and take the game to the opposition.
But there is a reasonable argument that even in playing Ndidi, City did take the game to Palace on Saturday, at least for an hour. It was far and away their best first-half showing of the season. They were a threat in attack.
So it is a tricky decision, and Cooper knows it. Asked last week about the balance of attributes in the midfield, he said: “That’s the challenge of a coach. You’re allowed 25 players and it’s about having options where you can put certain profiles of players in positions that are right for a gameplan.
“That’s the prerogative of a coach. The example you put there is definitely something we have, in the middle of the pitch. We will have it, eventually, all over the squad. I just hope I make some good decisions!”
Leave a Reply