Join the real City: Why Leicester need to cough up for Callum Doyle
Our international break hot takes continue with Helen Thompson making a personal plea to Top to get the chequebook out and secure one of our loan stars.
Hot takes fall into the category of things like Tik Tok that feel like I am simply too old to have the energy to regularly engage in or ‘get’. Football and especially football Twitter is awash with hot takes. Mostly they’re flipped on by the next game.
But at its definition, it’s a quick reaction about something you believe in without overthinking it. So here it goes: Assuming Leicester City get promoted, we need to break out the hammer and smash the piggy bank to give Manchester City whatever they want to sell us Callum Doyle.
How much is that Doyley in the window?
Don’t fall in love with the loan players, it’ll only break your heart. To that we say: Pah! Watch Callum Doyle making a move down the left and cutting across an inch-perfect pass to our forwards and then tell me you’re not feeling anything.
It doesn’t matter that Doyle is only 20 years old, that he’s only played ten competitive matches for us and done so out of his preferred position in all of them. He makes Leicester City better and we need to be thinking about how much money it’ll cost to tempt the Premier League champions to sell.
Chelsea landing Cole Palmer proved that even if you’re a super rich club with no need to sell, there’s always a price. Not suggesting we have to part with that type of silly money but billionaires can always be a few pounds richer, right?
This is football: 2023
Doyle is the perfect example of what you need to even be considered as a defender that Pep Guardiola would look at in 2023. Given that Maresca is straight from that mould and had already worked with Doyle in Manchester City’s youth setup, we shouldn’t be surprised that we thought we’d signed him to play centre-back but, so far, we have seen him holding down the left-back spot.
Obviously this is in a fluid system that sees him become more of a third centre-back when out of possession - a role he has history with for Maresca in the Manchester City Under-21s side. Injury aside, he had deservedly kept James Justin out of the squad and looked a real asset in the process.
There’s a calmness in the way Doyle approaches the game, a confidence that never looks like arrogance and versatility too. Perhaps it's a coincidence but it felt like Leicester needed more left-footed defensive players for a while before he joined. He’s got strength too and he doesn’t lack pace.
Combine what appears to be a hunger to attack the ball and drive forward with a gorgeous first touch and ball control skills and it’s pretty tantalising. There’s so much room for progression and development too. He’s not the completely finished product yet, but the type of player we should be looking to invest in who could really build a career with us.
Ignore his age, this is a player with more than a hundred senior club appearances and who is clearly not afraid to get stuck in. Two play-off adventures with two different clubs will have given him invaluable experience too. Dedication and work ethic (not a problem on either count for Doyle) can take you a long way, add in what looks like a heap of talent and we’d be fools to not even try and tempt him away from his parent club.
Creativity and precision passing
His injury against Bristol City was unfortunate, not least for how innocuous it looked but how serious it turned out to be. Depth-wise, this is nowhere near the levels of last season when we had no fullbacks should our remaining one or two get injured. He’d been excellent in the previous game though and in comparison to our other options, Doyle added something different. A spark that we’ve missed.
This hype of Doyle is not a diss or put down of James Justin. But Justin’s not been as potent in attack, which may be linked to the general slowdown on goals for the Foxes in recent games. Doyle had been very much a part of the attacking prowess though in the start to our season. His range of passing has seen him cut out a midfield, helpful against the teams who’ve put ten men behind the ball.
He’s only notched one assist so far but it was an excellent one and he came close with a few other balls into the box. A player that likes to score, he has had some promising shots on goal already this season and has an air of having a thunderbolt to come at some stage. His goal for the England Under-21s was an impressive strike. He’s got the vision to look for that precision pass, alongside executing them, and had some early joy in linking up with Stephy Mavididi down the left side.
With some frustrations and misfiring going on up front, we’ve missed several players who are out injured, but no more so than Doyle against Leeds United. Having him back as we enter 2024 would be a big boost in the push for promotion.
Chequebook to the ready, Top
Doyle is a player who clearly has no intention of warming a bench anytime soon, and while he may well have the class to eventually be a first-team player for Manchester City, that team has its own cautionary tales. See Kalvin Phillips for reference.
Assuming Maresca remains in charge, or any other manager with an eye for the game, Doyle would be nailed on for a starting role with us.
Time to get out the fancy pen and prep the cheque book, Top!
12 Days of Christmas at The Bridge
For the past 10 years, The Bridge Homelessness to Hope has served a 3-course Christmas Dinner with all the trimmings to hundreds of people in Leicester who are experiencing homelessness.
This year, they want to go one better and offer their guests (service users) not just one day of celebrations but 12 days of festive events over the month of December.
If you’re enjoying The Fosse Way, please consider donating to The Bridge’s Christmas appeal:
