“I would like to go back” – Former Leicester star wants a dream return to the club despite their relegation

 

 

Danny Drinkwater, the 33-year-old midfielder, has revealed his eagerness to rejoin his former club Leicester City, despite their relegation.

Since his move to Chelsea in 2017, Drinkwater’s career has faced significant setbacks, with limited playing time for the Blues and a subsequent period of being without a club after his contract expired last year.

Although his departure from Leicester was met with criticism and accusations of betrayal, Drinkwater remains open to the possibility of returning to the Foxes.

In an interview with SportBible, he acknowledged the mixed opinions surrounding his Leicester exit but Drinkwater expressed his willingness to return to the club and contribute to Leicester’s journey back to the Premier League.

He told SportBible:

“When I left Leicester, some people called me a snake.”

“To this day, people still say I shouldn’t have left. They point out that I’m not playing now but then some others say, ‘Come back and get us back into the Premier League’.

“I would like to go back. I’d like to be a part of the story again, helping them get back to where they belong. When I’m fit, the quality is still there. If a team can get me to match fitness and flying again then I’ll be nothing but a benefit to that club.

“I’d also like to think I’m a big asset off the pitch. If it’s something the Leicester fans want then they need to make more noise about it. Let’s see what happens.”

During his time at Leicester, Drinkwater made 218 appearances, scoring 15 goals and providing 23 assists. He played a crucial role in the team’s remarkable Premier League triumph in 2016.

Following his move to Chelsea, he has been loaned out to 4 different clubs but struggled to make a significant impact and was eventually let go once his contract expired.

READ MORE

Leicester City have completed the signings of defender Conor Coady from Wolverhampton Wanderers and Harry Winks from Tottenham Hotspur. In doing so, the Foxes have added two players who have appeared 10 times apiece for England and have spent almost half of the £40 million we received for James Maddison. You probably already knew this as we’re not exactly in the business of breaking news here at Fosse Posse. What we can do is offer a little insight into how they’ll fit in and what they have to offer.

Content warning: We can either be unfailingly positive or honest, not both. We woke up and chose violence.

Let’s start with the former Spurs man who spent last season on loan at Sampdoria. An ankle injury limited him to 20 matches (19 starts) for the Genoese side. Despite the injury, the 1719 minutes he played represent the second-highest total of his career as he fell out of favour with Spurs after Mauricio Pochettino left the club.

Part of the problem is that he’s a defensive midfielder in name, but perhaps in name only. He’s very active on defence but he doesn’t tackle at all. When your two biggest weaknesses are “tackling” and “aerial duels,” you’re not really suited to being a lone DMC.

However, he’s become quite good when moving the ball forward with long passes. His assist total last year was low (zero, which is about as low as you can get), but that was due to poor finishing more than his passing skills.

In other words, Winks looks very much like a player who could thrive in Youri Tielemans’ role as a deep midfielder who contribute can contribute to the defence when playing alongside a proper destroyer and excels at getting attacks started.

Conclusion: £10 million seems like a lot to spend on a player who has never had a truly “good” season. There’s room for hope as he does some very useful things well, but he hasn’t put it all together. At 27 years old, he should be at the absolute peak of his game right now so expectations should be tempered appropriately. The upside here is that he’s a useful player at this level who helps us get back to the top flight at the first time of asking.

Conor Coady

Oh boy. Let’s just start with a quiz. Here are the statistical profiles of Wout Faes, Harry Souttar, the departed Daniel Amartey, and Conor Coady:

Take a moment to guess which profile goes with which player.

The correct order is Coady, Faes, Souttar, and Amartey.

There’s no sugar-coating this: Conor Coady was absolutely diabolical last season. One of the first things Sean Dyche did when he took the reins was to drop Coady in favour of Michael Keane*. He was bang average when it came to making short passes and hoofing the ball out of defence and struggled mightily with everything else.

Coincidentally, he shares weaknesses with Winks: Tackling and aerial duels. Those two concerns are rather more pronounced when you’re talking about a central defender. Of greater concern is the fact that this is really who he’s been since Nuno Espírito Santo left Wolves.

Therein lies one of the two silver linings we’ve been able to identify. Santo preferred to play three at the back and that works very much in Coady’s favour. He needs to be flanked by quicker, more athletic defenders to be effective. Should Enzo Maresca decide to play in this shape, there’s hope that Coady’s shortcomings won’t be exposed the way they were at Everton.