Why Leicester City should rekindle their interest in James Tarkowski
Leicester City have made a great start to their league campaign but they shouldn’t be complacent as tougher challenges will be ahead.
In the summer, according to reports in the Daily Mail, James Tarkowski had been touted as a potential replacement by Leicester City for Harry Maguire, as the England international made a high-profile switch to Manchester United in the summer.
Maguire had two outstanding seasons for Leicester, winning their Player of the Year award in 2017/18. A move to a club like United was truly well deserved. Leicester currently have Caglar Soyuncu as Maguire’s replacement and the Turk has started the season reasonably well.
Tarkowski has also had a rise of his own like Maguire, having been one of Burnley’s standout players in the 2017/18 season where they finished in 7th place.
He was rewarded with an international cap for the England national side and hasn’t looked back since. He is always high in the statistics department, with respect to making clearances and winning aerial duels.
This would be in line with some of Maguire’s best attributes. However, he doesn’t have the ability – or at least hasn’t shown the ability – to drive into the midfield. He is a decent long-range passer though, constantly playing diagonal passes.
He suffered a hernia operation last season before the FIFA 2018 World Cup but was part of the 23-man squad. This obviously didn’t help him at the start of last season and Burnley suffered for it.
Tarkowski will be hoping he can be back in the mix for the national team and the best way to do that would be to move to a bigger side like Leicester City.
Leicester are building a fantastic side under Brendan Rodgers. They have a fantastic set of young players in James Maddison, Wilfried Ndidi, Ricardo Pereira, Harvey Barnes and Ben Chilwell.
Brendan Rodgers has embedded his possession-heavy style and attacking philosophy on the team quite early and will be hoping that they can make an effort to breach the top-four.
A lot of the big clubs are in a period of transition and this is a great time for the best of the rest like Leicester to capitalize. To that end, signing Tarkowski in January would be a fantastic move.