Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers has revealed how he hopes to improve ‘impressive’ midfielder Wilfred Ndidi.
The Nigerian has been one of the club’s outstanding players this season, topping many of the team’s statistic charts and riding high in many of the league’s number lists for players in his position having played in all 34 of City’s games this season.
The hard-working central midfielder has the second most tackles in the Premier League this season, behind only Idrissa Gueye of Everton.
But despite his impressive season, manager Brendan Rodgers still has plans to help the 22-year-old to take his game to the next level.
“Watching him from the outside, he’s obviously a player that’s got good athletic ability and works very hard,” Rodgers told Leicester Mercury.
“I always have that sort of player, a clear, controlling player in the game. Sometimes they’re a defensive type like him that can really press the game and play simple, or sometimes it’s a more creative player, a playmaker from behind.
“For him, he’s got so much talent. Looking at his numbers he’s up there with having played the most games this season, with Kasper.
“All we try to do is make it clear what his function is in the team. It’s a job that may seem a simple job but he does it so effectively. He has to win the ball and give it, simple as that. He doesn’t need to be in the box shooting, that’s not your job.
“Look after the other two boys in front of you, and just control the space in front of the centre-halves. He does it so, so well.
“We’re trying to improve him in that position because you’re going to be on the ball a lot. You’ve got to serve it, serve it over 10 or 15 metres.
“So it’s just simplifying his game and trying to make him efficient. He’s been very impressive.”
Rodgers is convinced that the deep midfield role is still relevant in modern football at it helps the team regain possession of the ball.
“Very much so, you don’t get away with what you did years ago,” he added.
“Now it’s more about intercepting, blocking, very rarely will you have to go to ground.
“He covers the ground so fast. His anticipation is very good, he reads the game, he smells the danger, and then for Youri and for James and for other attacking midfield players, to have that type of player in there, it’s very important.”
4 Comments
Reading this just about explain, albeit I m not surprise. how these managers destroy pure African talents especially Nigerian footballers. Grooming a player who scored wonderful goals while at genk in Belgium to start thinking that being in the box to score is not his job will definitely destroy that ability to score through lack of confidence when such chances present itself. This could easily be the reason while ndidi has found its hard to score goals like he did in Belgium. Nacho might be suffering from all dz stupid so called modern day tactics that emphasises players playing managers football thinking rather than expressing their God given abilities n talents.
He wants to turn Ndidi into Makelele. That is good for future of super eagles.
He can still score goals from outside.
Will it favour our style of play in the super eagles? We haven’t recovered to what was done to Mikel oh
My football knowledge is not great but I think Mikel was converted from an offensive midfielder to a defensive midfielder.
If that was the case, Morinho robbed Nigerians of much creativity and goal scoring threat in the final third, such that the Super Eagles did not recover for over 10 years.
Ndidi is already a defensive midfielder. Trying to add creativity to his game might not be a step in the right direction . Just let him be more entrenched in that deep disruptive midfield role and hope that current generations of Under-20s and Under-23 will fill that much needed void of a creative or attacking midfielder role in that the Super Eagles badly needs.