Romeo Lavia mightn’t have featured in Southampton’s season-opening win over Sheffield Wednesday on Friday night, but another Liverpool-linked Championship player made a massive impact this weekend.
A few days after facing the Reds in Singapore, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall found himself the subject of reported interest from Anfield.
In contrast to the Belgian’s watching brief for the Saints at Hillsborough, the Leicester midfielder made a decisive contribution for his side as they also began life back in the second tier with a 2-1 victory.
His two goals ensured that the Foxes came from behind to claim all three points against last season’s beaten play-off finalists Coventry at the King Power Stadium.
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The decisive brace from Dewsbury-Hall will obviously make the headlines, but there was a lot more to his overall performance than those match-winning moments.
As per Sofascore, his two goals were among no fewer than eight shots that the 24-year-old took this afternoon (three on target, three blocked, two off target), while he also put in the hard yards by winning eight of his 10 duels (80% success rate) and two tackles.
His use of the ball was pivotal to Leicester’s victory, with the midfielder making a joint-team high three key passes and succeeding with 41 of his 50 passes in total (82% accuracy).
The links to Dewsbury-Hall have only surfaced in recent days, unlike the long-running pursuit of Lavia, so we’ll have to wait and see just how seriously Liverpool might chase the Foxes dynamo, who’ll have done his prospects of a return to the Premier League this month no harm whatsoever today.
He mightn’t seem the most enthralling of transfer targets, but it’s worth remembering that Gini Wijnaldum and Andy Robertson both came to Anfield off the back of being relegated from the top flight, and they both proved to be terrific additions.
If it comes down to a choice of bringing in only the Leicester man or not signing a midfielder at all this month, we’re taking Option A every time.
#Ep83 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Neil Jones