Why Matt O’Riley would be a good signing for Leicester City

The King Power side have already announced the signings of Bobby De-Cordova Reid and Michael Golding. However, there is still a lot of work to be done in the transfer market, with defense and midfield the target positions for rookies. Cooper has targeted Matt O’Riley as a replacement for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall.

The English-born Danish midfielder plays for former Foxes manager Brendan Rodgers at Celtic in the Scottish Premiership, so can certainly translate his style of play well to the Premier League. However, the talent has a lot to offer the English club and that is the purpose of this piece.

Well, let’s get a little basic: 37 games started, 18 goals scored and 13 assists. That’s 31 goal contributions from the Danish midfielder in a single season. These are exceptional stats and certainly underline the type of player O’Riley is and where he would fit into Cooper’s squad.

Furthermore, looking at his heat map across the Scottish league, we see that O’Riley provides a similar creative box-to-box presence to ‘KDH’, albeit more focused on progression and penetration than the spirited defensive performances provided by the new Chelsea. midfielder Again, an obvious benefit for Leicester City in replacing such a critical player with a ready-made talent who would link up well with Abdul Fatawu on the right while supporting Harry Winks in the middle.

Stylistically, there is less data available to illustrate what the player would bring to the King Power club. However, we can see some things, and we can also see some of them from the heat map and basic stats: an attacking midfielder who likes to come deep to collect the ball, dribbles it into an attacking position, then either lays it off for a striker. or simply take a shot. SmarterScout shows that O’Riley likes to dribble the ball to keep possession, ensure progression and often finds himself in the box ready to shoot on goal.

It is therefore clear to see that Matt O’Riley would be a brilliant addition for Leicester as well as the perfect fit for our midfield. I suppose the situation also hinges on what happens with Wilfred Ndidi, with little news of a move for Boubakary Soumare. Personally, if the Nigerian midfielder doesn’t sign a new deal, then a midfield trio of Winks, Soumare and O’Riley would retain an effective technical balance while providing better passing than what we would have with Ndidi.

Celtic are expected to want a record fee of around £25m to sign the talent. This would eat up the KDH deal entirely alongside the Golding signing, so I would hope that either another sale would unlock more funds without too much of a loss for the defensive signings we should be in for.