Leicester City have had a wonderful start to life back in the Championship, winning ten of their first eleven league games as Enzo Maresca’s side seek promotion at the first time of asking.
The Foxes endured a lot of turnover during the summer as key players exited the King Power Stadium, including Youri Tielemans, James Maddison, Caglar Soyuncu, Timothy Castagne, and Johnny Evans.
However, Maresca did manage to hold on to some vital first-team names despite interest elsewhere. One of the players that remained in Leicestershire is academy product Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.
The former Blackpool and Luton Town loanee made his Premier League debut two seasons ago under Brendan Rodgers and never looked back, becoming one of the first names on the teamsheet each week.
Dewsbury-Hall’s impressive performances have also garnered top-flight interest. TalkSPORT revealed at the end of September that Fulham were keeping an eye on the 25-year-old and could look to snap him up during the summer.
Furthermore, Anfield Watch reported that Liverpool were admirers of Dewsbury-Hall, while 90min claimed that the Leicester star was a back-up option for Manchester City if the champions failed to secure the services of Lucas Paqueta or Matheus Nunes.
Despite this interest, Dewsbury-Hall hasn’t been put off his game and has arguably been the most impactful player in the Championship this season, at least according to the stats.
This term, the midfielder has bagged five goals and registered three assists (8 goal contributions) under Maresca in England’s second tier. Only Blackburn Rovers’ Sammie Szmodics has managed to accumulate more goal contributions (9).
When digging deeper into the stats, though, Dewsbury-Hall tops both the non-penalty expected goals (xG) and the expected assists (xA) charts when the two are combined.
In the 2023/24 campaign, the Leicester City man has tallied an xG of 3.8, the fifth-highest in the league. Meanwhile, he also boasts an xA of 4.7. In total, this comes to 8.5 expected non-penalty goal contributions which is the highest in the entire division.
FBref‘s data has placed Dewsbury-Hall in the top percent of all players in the Championship for shots, shots on target, non-penalty goals, shot-creating actions, progressive passes received, touches in the attacking penalty area, and challenges lost.
Dewsbury-Hall has also featured in every game for Leicester City this season, primarily starting on the left of a midfield trio in a 4-3-3.
Writer’s View
Capable of going forward emphatically and keeping goals out at the other end, Dewsbury-Hall is the definition of a box-to-box player.
He is undoubtedly one of Maresca’s most influential stars this season too and one could easily make the case for him being the best player in the Championship since the start of the campaign.
Deputy Head of Writing
