Kelechi Iheanacho: Did Manchester City sell in-form Leicester striker too early?
Kelechi Iheanacho had made one league start before Christmas. When January ended, he had more penalty misses (one) than goals (none) in the top flight.
He finished February with a solitary league goal. And he goes into the FA Cup final as the hottest forward in the country.
It is a remarkable transformation. Iheanacho has 10 goals in 11 league matches, 15 in 17 in all competitions. He was Leicester’s match-winner in the FA Cup quarter-final against Manchester United and then the semi-final versus Southampton.
If Leicester belatedly lift the FA Cup, 128 years after first entering it, Iheanacho may be the player of the competition. It would make him a Leicester legend.
He has not been as potent since he scored six goals and registered seven assists in the 2013 Under-17 World Cup; unsurprisingly, he was named the player of the tournament. Now he may be the player of the last third of the Premier League.
Since Iheanacho sprang to life with a fine equaliser against Burnley in March, he has 10 goals and two assists. He is the most productive player in that time. He is two clear at the top of the scoring charts and, if assists are factored in, one ahead of Chris Wood.
The statistics since then underline his two great strengths: he is often an excellent finisher and he gets into goalscoring positions. Those 10 goals come from an xG of 6.73; in overperforming his xG by 3.27 over 10 weeks, he ranks second only to Gareth Bale, who has bettered his by 5.09.
But Iheanacho also has the second highest xG over that spell, behind only Harry Kane. He is the major reason that, despite some faltering form, Leicester are the joint top scorers in that time, with 20.
What is expected goals (xG)?
- Expected goals (xG) is a metric that measures the quality of any given scoring opportunity
- Expected goals for (xGF) is the xG created by a team
- Expected goals against (xGA) is xG conceded by a team
The FA Cup final offers a contrast; the Foxes have overperformed their xG of late, whereas Chelsea have underperformed theirs.
The difference between them can seem summed up by Iheanacho, the forgotten £25 million buy who has been repurposed as the main goal threat while Jamie Vardy has been on a drought and Harvey Barnes injured - and Kai Havertz and Timo Werner, the statement signings who have stuttered in front of goal. Iheanacho has been altogether more clinical.
He has scored as many Premier League goals since the start of March as Havertz and Werner have got in total.
But he has also been more creative than in the past. Paradoxically, he can be both the specialist finisher and a player who chips in with assists. He has got three in each of his previous four Premier League campaigns.
That is down to two now, but his expected assists (3.50) has never been higher. Include his three assists in the Europa League and his one in the FA Cup and he has made more goals than ever before.
That may be part of Brendan Rodgers’ impact, turning a poacher into more of an all-round footballer. The Nigerian had never completed 30 passes in a game for Leicester before this season but found a team-mate 50 times against West Brom.
If that represents an outlier, he managed 32 against Newcastle on Friday. He has found a team-mate in the penalty box 20 times this season in the Premier League; before then, he had only done so 27 times in his Leicester career. He has career-best numbers for total number of passes, key passes and touches.
In part, that reflects the reality that he is playing more. And to play, Iheanacho has sometimes had to demonstrate that he offers more than just goals. His nadir was 2018-19, which yielded a lone league goal, in 930 minutes.
But otherwise, he has often been a bit-part player with a fine ratio: a league goal every 193 minutes last season, one every 132 in 2016-17, one every 94 in his breakthrough season of 2015-16 for Manchester City.
Iheanacho’s goals may secure a top-four finish this season. It would not be the first time: his strike clinched fourth place for Manuel Pellegrini’s City in 2016. It did not earn extended opportunities under Pep Guardiola.
If, in part, that was due to the presence of Sergio Aguero, it highlights the way the Catalan has rarely wanted a specialist predator. City’s has been an anti-Iheanacho triumph this season, with midfielders playing as false nines and chipping in with goals.
Leicester have gone the other way of late, playing a strike partnership, even using a 4-4-2 formation at Old Trafford on Tuesday. That Vardy has three assists for Iheanacho has shown two centre-forwards can combine.
That Leicester’s defensive record is worse when both start – they have conceded 17 in 11 league games together – reflects more on those further back in the team, but suggests there is a trade-off from having two strikers.
Depending on if and where Havertz and Werner play, Chelsea may have none in the FA Cup final. It will be a clash of ideologies and of eras. Leicester may appear old-fashioned by fielding the finisher supreme. But Iheanacho could give their season a supreme finish.
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