‘Outstanding’: Rodgers and Vardy hail one Leicester star after yesterday’s performance

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Leicester City are aiming for another good season in the Premier League and they started the campaign brilliantly. The Foxes scored three past newly-promoted West Bromwich Albion thanks to a debut goal from Timothy Castagne and a couple of penalties from their main man Jamie Vardy.

Brendan Rodgers had a few issues going into the game on Sunday. Caglar Soyuncu was Leicester’s only available centre-half, which forced the Foxes boss to deploy Wilfred Ndidi in an unnatural centre-back position.

The Nigerian had only played in central defence four times before, all off which were for his former side KRC Genk in Belgium. Ndidi had a tough test against the Baggies but he passed with flying colours.

The 23-year-old made four clearances, two tackles, two interceptions and blocked a shot. He wasn’t dribbled past once in the entire game and he committed no fouls, which doesn’t happen often in the Premier League (SofaScore).

Ndidi used his experience as a midfielder to brilliant effect. He was very good with the ball, completing 82 passes, while maintaining an impressive passing accuracy of 88% (SofaScore).

Rodgers and Vardy hailed Ndidi’s display

Jamie Vardy was delighted with his teammate’s performance yesterday, as was Rodgers, who labelled his display ‘outstanding’.

Rodgers said, as quoted by Goal: “Ndidi playing at centre-back was outstanding. He played 60 minutes there in a pre-season friendly. He did play there earlier in his career. He’s got the profile to play there – he’s big with a good leap.”

“Even if he’d played there all his life it would be tough coming back from everyone playing different systems with national teams. It would always be difficult to be cohesive after a couple of days training.”

Vardy seconded his manager’s opinion about Ndidi. He said, via Goal: “We need to keep going, we need to continue working hard in training, taking it into the games. Wilf has played centre-back today, I think he’s done really well, it is not his natural position.”