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H T B said:
Marc Albrighton, another player that just goes about his business. And some!
How many unsung heroes can you have?
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I'm a big fan of Albrighton, I think he's the player who gives the side balance. It doesn't strike me as a coincidence that it was as soon as he came back into the side at the end of the of last season we started winning and the only league game he hasn't started since that West Ham game was away at Stoke when we played our poorest half of football all season - then he came on at half-time at 2-0 down and we came back to draw 2-2.

Since we signed him our win ratio when he hasn't started in the PL has been only 16% from 30 games and our win ratio when he was started has been 70% from 26 games - that's a pretty insane difference.

Against Chelsea it was clear he was our main outlet on the counter. Chelsea tried to double-mark Mahrez, as Mourinho even said, claiming his players "betrayed" him by not sticking to that - but on the contrary I think Ranieri was thinking 2 moves ahead of him and knew it was coming so told us to play through Albrighton instead (47% of our attacks came down the left, compared to 25% through the middle and 27% down the right). When we were playing so much down the left, Chelsea players have to naturally move over to that side, because you can't have all your defenders double marking someone out of the way on the other side of the pitch and when they did - Mahrez pulls away from them round the back and Albrighton plays the cross field ball over the top to him and that was our second goal! Seems like we've scored quite a few goals this season from Mahrez getting on the end of Albrighton's cross-field balls.

But it's not just that, more than his attacking play even, I think his defensive work-rate is his greatest attribute - they showed a graphic at half-time on my stream of the Everton match of their average position and Albrighton was our 2nd furthest outfield player back only ahead of Morgan - he was behind Fuchs who is supposed to be the full-back playing behind him!

When we actually signed him I had this idea in my head he was a Paul Gallagher type player who was a bit of a luxary but too lightweight and when it wasn't his day he could be esentially useless, but in fact he's the exact opposite! Works his socks off every game, superp at getting back and helping out the defence, superb at pressing from the front (we saw his tenacity lead to our 3rd against Everton, pressing straight from the throw-in) and for a 5ft9 winger, which usually screams "lightweight luxary player" he makes a hell of a lot of tenacious tackles every game. Think we missed him when he went off at 3-1 up against Everton too, as while Dyer is a good attacking player, he's nowhere near the defender Albrighton is and Everton seemed to just keep pumping early crosses in from our left in Lukaku and Kone.

But it gives us this lob-sided midfield 4 which teams can't seem to deal with where Albrighton is playing as a defensive winger or almost a wing-back and Mahrez is playing a wide forward and allows us to switch the play so effectively and means Mahrez gets more freedom on the right and his markers have to come inside at some point.

If I was a Guardian football journalist I'd write an article entitled "Marc Albrighton is Leicester's Sergio Busquets" as much like the football hipster's favourite line is "Sergio Busquets is Barcelona's most important player", as he's the one who gives them the tactical balance and allows the other attacking player's their freedom playing in the very modern and hipster-favourite position of a defensive midfielder, I feel exactly the same way about Albrighton playing in the very modern and hipster-favourite position of a defensive winger.

I think Ranieri's decision to play him as a defensive winger has been one of his biggest masterstrokes since he's been here and one of his most important changes in the much trotted out "Ranieri has kept it the same but changed a few small things."
 
Agree with all that, I thought I was going to be frustrated by a lack of pace for a winger but he is rarely caught out defensively while contributing regularly going forward. A very all-round player.
 
I quite like fuchs... and morgan... and danny boy... and drinky.. and NG.... and jamo... When you think about we are far from a two man team (vardy and riyad). We really do have some fine players. We will still lose every game though ;
 
I take it Hames Vardinihio has already been in the list then??
 
How the hell did we get a captain and key player of one of the top 10 international teams in the world who've just got 28/30 points in qualifying and who's spent his past 4 years playing Champions League football at a top 4 Bundesliga side (which is of higher quality than a top 4 PL side right now) on a free transfer?

Seriously, it's not like he's 35 like Cambiasso was - he's 29, we could still easily get another 6 seasons out of him.

Honestly think it was one of the biggest transfer coups in the club's history and it seems to have gone completely under the radar outside of Leicester.
 
Profondo Rosso said:
How the hell did we get a captain and key player of one of the top 10 international teams in the world who've just got 28/30 points in qualifying and who's spent his past 4 years playing Champions League football at a top 4 Bundesliga side (which is of higher quality than a top 4 PL side right now) on a free transfer?

Seriously, it's not like he's 35 like Cambiasso was - he's 29, we could still easily get another 6 seasons out of him.

Honestly think it was one of the biggest transfer coups in the club's history and it seems to have gone completely under the radar outside of Leicester.
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He's superb. Especially when compared with the previous incumbents. I literally can't remember the last time we had a proper left back. All the way back to Whitlow. It's been a revolving door of clowns ever since. Until now. And when you add in his experience, leadership and that ****ing torpedo of a throw.

I love him. Struggling to think of a better left back in the premier league.

This time last year we were rolling out Konchesky. It's almost too absurd to be real.
 
Miles Away said:
He's superb. Especially when compared with the previous incumbents. I literally can't remember the last time we had a proper left back. All the way back to Whitlow. It's been a revolving door of clowns ever since. Until now. And when you add in his experience, leadership and that ****ing torpedo of a throw.

I love him. Struggling to think of a better left back in the premier league.

This time last year we were rolling out Konchesky. It's almost too absurd to be real.
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Even if it was only for one season, Bruno Berner was superb for the level we were at in 09/10 and was the main catalyst in reaching the play-offs imo.

I seem to remember our results and performances being awful whenever he was out the side and him being such a massive influence whenever he was in the side.
 
1 attempt on goal by Jamie Vardy in Leicester’s win at Everton. Although the Foxes frontman kept his tally ticking over with a pair of assists, he has now failed to score in two of the last three and notched just twice in his previous four league outings. When compared to his displays across Gameweeks 1-13, there’s been a considerable drop in threat from Vardy. His touches in the box (from 8.3 to 5.0), minutes per shot (from 22.5 to 60.2), efforts in the area (from 3.4 to 1.2) and shots on target (from 1.9 to 0.8) have all plummeted. Furthermore, with far less time in possession in the final third (from 29.3 touches to 19.2), he has supplied a key pass every 90.3 minutes in the last four, slipping from a previous average of 71.6 minutes.
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A drop in form from one of the greatest spells of form the English top flight has ever seen isn't much of a damning inciment though tbf. He's still been fantastic in our last 3 games.

He's still got a goal or an assist in his last 18 games (no way you're telling me that pass to Shinji vs West Ham shouldn't count as an assist), when the previous PL record was 13 (and assists weren't tracked before the PL before anyone says about records before then etc.).
 
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