Is Schneiderlin the answer to Leicester's rut?

Leicester are on the track to have the worst title defence in history, saving Chelsea’s blushes from last season. This lacklustre performance in the league has been attributed down to losing Kante and it was always going to be a hard task to replace him. Ranieri must have felt the burden could be split between Daniel Amartey, who arrived from Copenhagen last January and appeared only a handful of times last season, and new summer signing Nampalys Mendy who has only made 3 appearances so far for Leicester. Currently lying in 15^th, Leicester look uninspired and tired, most likely still carrying a hangover from the celebrations of last season. However, it’s time for a cup of coffee to shake that hangover off because they’re in contention with a relegation battle if they can’t improve in January.

Kante was the star player for Leicester with 175 tackles in the Premier league and 156 interceptions, a rare commodity is finding a player who can top both tackles and interceptions in the same season and by such a margin. His pure energy and endless reserves of stamina made it feel like Leicester had 12 on the pitch. With the comparisons to Claude Makelele, it was clear that Chelsea needed a player like him and off he went to play with serious title contenders.  Maybe signing Amartey in January was preparation for losing the star man, but a much more obvious replacement was Nampalys Mendy. Playing for Nice last season, he received multiple plaudits for his work alongside Ben Arfa, averaging just under 2 tackles a game and 2.2 interceptions. This is barely half on Kante’s stats who managed an incredible average of 4.7 tackles a game alongside 4.2 interceptions. Mendy has featured only twice in the Premier league and clearly isn’t quite ready to be a replacement for Kante, instead, Daniel Amartey has featured in his place. However, the Ghanaian hasn’t produced much better, only managing just under 2 two tackles a game and barely more than an interception a game. I feel this lack of drive and energy in the midfield has been a key reason behind Leicester’s rapid fall.

Morgan Schneiderlin could help fix this. In his three years at Southampton, Schneiderlin managed around 4 tackles a game, his average interception rate in his first season in England was 3.9, whilst this rate dropped to roughly 2.5 he still was a strong tackling force in the defensive midfield area. Since his big money move to Manchester, he has found playing time hard to come by in the North and this has had a negative effect on his statistics. In his 32 total starts since his move in 2015, he has only managed roughly 2.5 tackles and 2.4 Interceptions. Everton are favourites to sign the French Midfielder and whilst he wouldn’t be cheap, I feel it would be a tactical risk. Leicester need to find that bite in their midfield which they lost when Kante left for London and if Schneiderlin could find the form that he left in the South Coast, he’d be invaluable to getting Leicester’s season back on track. No one believed they could match the season they had last year, but I think we all felt they could do far better than this. Schneiderlin could potentially help tape up the defensive holes left by Kante. If they have a spare £24million that is.