Kelechi Iheanacho Benchmarking

Regardless of aspirations and preferences, it appears that Shin Yamada will be Kyogo Furuhashi’s and Kelechi Iheanacho will be Adam Idah’s “replacements.”

By replacement, I mean spots within the squad rather than specific talent levels or relative fit within roles within the team’s style of play.

As I wrote about in the benchmarking exercise for Shin, he is more of a penalty box poacher rather than a linear replacement for a robust talent like Kyogo.

I often refer to Adam Idah as a miscast actor in the wrong movie during his time at Celtic, so is Iheanacho going to be similar, or will he be better suited as a holdup striker?

To explore this question, I decided to go back in a time machine a bit to 2021-2022, when Iheanacho played the 2nd of consecutive season in what was probably the peak of his career so far at Leicester City. It was within the English Premier League with Brendan Rodgers as his manager.

I included two peers of interest, Odsonne Edouard and Christian Benteke, both of whom played at Crystal Palace that season. Edouard was included for the obvious relatable aspect during his first season after having left Celtic. Benteke was due to him being a different profile and a former target of Rodgers when he was at Liverpool.

There were some similarities between Iheanacho and Edouard relative to the style of play section of metrics. Iheanacho’s profile was more that of a chance creator than a striker getting on the end of chances during the season.