Leicester City midfielder Wilfred Ndidi and Manchester United’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka finished the 2019/20 season as the joint top tackler in the Premier League, reports Completesports.com.
Ndidi’s Leicester City team-mate Ricardo Pereira finished in third position.
Ndidi and Wan-Bissaka made 129 tackles, while Pereira made 119 tackles.
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The Nigeria international won the accolade with 138 tackles in the 2017/18 season and followed that up with another number one rating with 144 tackles last season.
Ndidi scored two goals in 33 league appearances for Leicester City in the just concluded season.
Leicester City missed out on a Champions League place after going down to a 2-0 home defeat against Manchester United at the King Power Stadium on Sunday.
The Foxes finished in position and will compete in the Europa League next season.
By Adeboye Amosu
18 Comments
K.Nwakali is farbetter than all SE Midfielders….including Mikel and the best DM in the EPL for 3 consecutive seasons….LMAO. Nor be small matter…!
Dr Drey, some people are beclouded by their emotional feelings rather than facing the reality. It’s only insane person that can compare indidi to Nwakali at the moment. Nwakali has a potential to be one of the greatest midfielders in SE but comparing him to Indidi at this point in time beats my imagination.
Hahahaha….
@Dr. Drey…..
They’ve run into hiding….
They will not come and argue this fact on ground….
K. Nwakali that can’t even break into FC PORT B starting XI….
pls what do we have to say about jesse sekidika that ploys his trade in turkey he has the same quality with samuel kalu and chidera ejuke out of the three which one is better and which one should make way for the two
Wilfred Ndidi,is naturally a defender that’s why he does so well in tackles.
But has he improved on his flair as a midfielder which is very important for dominance and having control of games thereby forcing opponents closer to their own goal than they traditionally would?This i’m yet to verify but from the few i have seen of his games this is never his strong point and perhaps why he’s still a Leicester City player after three successful seasons.
Apparently,when you see the likes of Busquet,Matic,Jorginho,Fernandinho and a host of others play this similar role,you observe their innate capacity to dominate the midfield and their ball playing abilities which helps them to touch the ball more than other players on the field,this apparently,have been behind the success of this great teams and if you don’t have this qualities the big teams who likes to dominate possession may be unwilling to pay a huge fees for your signature.
This in my opinion is the reason no top club has genuinely signified interest in Wilfred Ndidi.
Before you come and embarras your family here….check Ndidi stats this season has one of the highest pass accuracy in Epl(including long balls)…he completed four dribbles against Manchester United in the final game of the season…if that’s not flair enough then I don’t know what is
Wow…!heavy that!Seriously??damn..Embarrass my family for simply expressing my opinion are you messing??!
Listen this is a forum i hope you know that?And i’m not driven to write just to please anyone or a group rather my opinion.Yes Ndidi is not a skilful ball playing midfielder tough,sorry if that hurts,i have seen him play for club and country and i’m sorry you cannot change my opinion of that.
Though he made up for that with power play,athleticism,great tackles and a team player.
Meanwhile,Ndidi is a converted midfielder who started his career as a defender while a teenager and a youth international for Nigeria but was converted to play his present role in his early days in European football.
No doubt an efficient professional who does it through hard work.
No one is perfect in their observations so there are ways you could have put your points across civilly and i will grasp without making an issue of it.
Learn to respect people also their opinions even if they differ because sometimes you may think your point is spot on only to realise you were wrong.
I agree with you greenturf. We all love Ndidi. I love Ndidi. But the Painful truth we all have to admit is that he is not such a Skillful midfielder that has an eye for goal. We’ve seen other DMF such as Fabinho, Jorginho, Casemero et al. The reason why this guys will keep been rated highly than Ndidi is because they don’t Intercept, tackle and tackle only! They give assist and score goals too. They don’t just sit back. They shoot from the long range. Some also are specialist on the field in Free kicks e.g Fabinho @Monaco, Penalties eg Jorginho, Corner Kick takers and headers eg Casemeiro and he shoots well from outside the 18 yard. Ndidi needs to add this to his game. He needs to improve. Someone said jokingly on Facebook “NA TACKLE WE WAN CHOP?? THE SAME TACKLE E DO DO, INJURE PERSON BESIDE 18 YARD BOX AGAINST ALGERIA WEY MAHREZ LIGHT BETTER SHOT ENTER NET”..Lol. Funny but true. Good, we love this stats but please this coming season…Nna add more. Not until you do this, attack minded big clubs won’t come for you.
#Soar
Thanks @Chairmanfemi.We indeed love Ndidi but he is not the perfect player many thinks he’s and there’s no need to be sentimental it’s good to say it how it’s just like you expertly wrote in your post.
Meanwhile,a second look at the first half we played against Ukraine,you see the huge difference Etebo a natural ball playing midfielder made playing same role in Ndidi’s absence,that first half was a beauty to watch and you saw how the trio of Etebo,Aribo and Iwobi dovetailed beautifully and fittingly.
Then the game against Brazil,Ndidi started though he worked his socks off but not as oiled up as Etebo playing that role.I know people would say we were playing against Brazil nevertheless when you feature a technical good Nigerian side they can hold their own against any team in the world but you have to select a highly technical side that are comfortable with the ball.When you get it right with selection,you see the super eagles knock the ball around beautifully with enthusiasm.
At youth levels Samson Siasia and Manu Garba are the two local coaches that play beautiful football because they select good technical players.But at senior level thumbs up for Rohr i’m a great fan.
Now I’m beginning to see some realistic views, I think say na only me dey observe. I said once rated Etebo as a more complete player with so much skillset. Ndidi must work on his final attacking instict like Pogba and fabinho!
How of truth I dey feel una
*hour
While I respect you and greenturf opinions, I beg to disagree and sorry to say, you both understand little about professionalism in football or let me say perhaps you both are too emotional about it. Though I didn’t play football at highest level, but I do play for all my school teams (including university).
Different positions has different match roles, Ndidi is a match breaker, breaking up the rhythm of opponents and frustrating their movements, that’s the specific roles of any number 4. Makelele, Michael Essien, Lasani Diarra, Diop, Dunga even Oliseh falls into this category. Check the stats of all these mentioned players and compare with casemiro, Jorginho and Busquet and see the number of goals conceded by their teams. Do you guys thinks it’s easy for a player to nailed down a particular role for 4 consecutive seasons without anyone displacing him? Do you think it’s a joke that every coach that came to Leicester continues to use him?
If not for kante and Bill Gilmour injury, Jorginho wouldn’t smell first team football under Lampard, can you see how many goals Chelsea conceded whenever kante is not playing? Or is Kante skillful?
Eye for goal and creativity is for AM, eg a no10 or no8. A blocking 4 is a sweeper on the field, he does all the dirty jobs, and they were usually undervalue. Nigerian fans are usually too emotional, we tends to compare a lots without understanding the basics.
I came to realise that most pple spewing out gabbages on this platform don’t even know how to kick orange talk more of even playing an amature compettion where a coach is needed…
B4 BRENDERN RODGERS arrive at the KING POWER STADIUM, we that follows EPL knew very well that NDIDI was a kind of “all round midfielder” i.e; he’ll do the marking, the tackling, the breaking of any counter, receives ball from defence and tries to initiate play Just like his predissessor (KANTE).
RODGERS came and change that pattern, NDIDI was given just one role to play (sit back, collect the ball and give to the likes of MADISON, TIELEMANS, PEREZ, NACHO, or PRAET) to wreck havoc, that was why LECEISTER excell that period…
Somebody said Ndidi doesn’t go for corners… How did he score chelsea at STAMFORD BRIDGE?
Apart from giving over 1000 passes without any assist, what has your JORGINHO done that looks spectacular?
Now a little boy of 18yrs (@ GILMOUR) is about disposing him and u are here hyping him…
Spare me such craps..
God bless you bro…
@Jones the person you bless now, someday you will curse him hypocrisy of the highest order! That someone’s opinion differs from yours, doesn’t warrant abuse or curse. I hope you have learnt how to control your anger and how to respond with maturity. @greentuf I’m very impressed with your response to Jones sir.
Continuing with this expose on Wilf (as he is called by his Leicester teammates), my observations reveal that he is an excellent ball winner as most have mentioned. He has improved on his tackling without being rash. Something quite a few of us have blamed for the reason we lost to Algeria. That was a characteristic of his game that really stood out as a negative. He seems to have worked on that.
Ndidi can still improve on his touch. He sometimes seems to be scared of the ball when he does receive it. It bounces off his feet and as a result he lunges to retrieve control of it. His passes also need a bit more finesse and longevity. He tends to lean backwards when attempting longer passes. Any pass greater than 10 feet tends to curve away from his intended recipient. The consequence is inaccurate long range passing and as a result his reluctance to make anything more than simple 2-5 feet passes. This skews his passing percentage in the upward direction. This is a consequence of improper ball stroking technique that is something I see with a lot of Nigerian players that come thru the academies in Nigeria (what are we teaching the kids in these academies for goodness sake!).
Also if you observe when he goes up for headers, he rarely has full control of his body and where he wants to direct the ball toward. These are things that he can improve on. If he does, he will add that extra dimension to his game that will cause the big big teams to take notice and start making serious bids.
i am in accordance with greenturf anf chima. Ndidi is a midfielder that was forced into us by the europeans, simply becos he plays regularly for leicester. assuming we have goodmidfielders in big clubs to compete u with him he would have far return to is natutal position(defence) i have long noticed this facts and laid my complains about our midfield but people refused to concur. ndidi that couldnt play under 20 and under 17 eagles midfield is now the super eagles go to man, its good for him but bad for the eagles. since he was fully introduced fully into our midfield against south africa in uyo till now with all afcon and world cup games he had with us i cant remember any key pass or assist from ndidi. the games he didnt play for example against egypt ukraine and southafrica away match proved that we can hold our own without ndidi in the midfield. what i noticed in brazil game that makes me start clamouring for the return of azubuike and onazi is that we didnt have a quality midfield. the brazilian defence line are more skill full and technical than our midfielder(ndidi) how can u dominate such team, that their midfielders can pass the ball while closing their eyes. the brazil game in abuja despite loosing with 3 goals the combination of garba lawal okocha and olonfijana dominated that game al through but they didnt had chukueze and osihmen to do the rest. i think Ndidi ruggedity in the middle can only be complemented with skillfulls like ejiara and azubuike to be able to dominate games. apart from him out defence line matters alot too of u look at algeria game we kept on accusing the middle but our wingbacks was poor too (awaziem and collins in a semifinal match) without aina was another error from rohr. central deffence ekong and omeruo didnt help matters too. to dominate ur opponents possesion the charity must begin from the deffence line ups.
Guys no one is talking down Ndidi, this is one problem we blacks have, we don’t seek improvement where required. Not even far away if you guys watched the recent match of Leicester against ManU you’ll feel disgusted at the technique Ndidi used when the pass was laid for him to shoot from 20yards. I was gutted at a point I thought it was Enyimba player. Compare this technique to that of fabinho or Fernandinho whose crackers have been hitting target and causing havoc to keepers. That’s another option and weapon for their respective teams.
This is modern football just like the improvements we have seen from LB and RB, DMs have also added shooting to their craft and in doing this you need to be consistent.
NDIDI can learn from Pogba, Fabinho and co to be the best all-rounder DM player. Instead of choosing to remain stagnant and legelege passing movements!