Leicester City signed Danish international defender Jannik Vestergaard from Southampton to improve their defence. Wesley Fofana’s injury meant that the Foxes lacked defensive options and needed someone experienced. Vestergaard’s aerial and ball-playing ability made him one of the top defenders in the Bundesliga and this led to a move into the English Premier League.
As we can see from the stats, Vestergaard had featured in five matches for Leicester and played three full games for his new side. The passing accuracy has been impressive and more than 90% in four matches. A total of 55 recoveries have been made by the centre back and only five have been made in the opposition half. He also managed to take two touches inside the opposition box.
The Danish player had already scored a goal last season within the first five games. He is a threat on set pieces and always provides a goal-scoring option while going in front for corners. The recoveries and aerial duels contested were pretty high in numbers. His dribbles, variety of passes suggest that he played with a lot of freedom. One thing that he has increased is his passing accuracy. Last season he was nearing 90%, but this season he is able to achieve the 90 mark.
The above viz represents the duels contested by the defender in the first five matches of this and the previous season. He has played more centrally under Brendan Rodgers and the duels are contested towards the centre of the pitch. Last season he contested most of the duels towards the left side. This means that he allowed the left-back to go forward and acted as a cover for him. Rodgers has given him more of a central role and his ground defensive duels have increased in numbers. The aerial duels numbers have gone down on the pitch and especially in the opposition box.
When looking at the above chart, the general rule is that the longer the bar the better the performance – you can see the league average in the middle and the % is the percentile rank the player is in.
Vestergaard averages more than 12 defensive actions per 90 and the success rate is in the early 90s. The defensive duels contested by him are only more than half of the defenders in the league, but he has contested a fair amount of aerial and loose ball duels. Recoveries and interceptions have been high and Vestergaard has played better than most of the defenders in the league. There is a small increase in the number of duels contested, interceptions and recoveries made from last year.
Jannik Vestergaard is yet to keep a clean sheet for his new team. The defender has made a partnership with Turkish defender Soyuncu. He will certainly look to make use of his aerial advantage and beat his goal-scoring tally of three goals in the previous season.
