Iheanacho to Villa: Five English top-flight records held by the Leicester striker
Kelechi Iheanacho has been subjected to the bench for most of the season, falling down the pecking order behind Patson Daka and Jamie Vardy.
Super Eagles striker, Kelechi Promise Iheanacho, has been linked with a move away from the King Power Stadium, with Unai Emery’s Aston Villa keen on the Leicester striker.
Having donned the shirt of Pep Guardiola’s Manchester City and won the FA Cup with The Foxes in 2021, Soccernet.ng takes a look into five records in English Football held by the 27-year-old forward.
1. Kelechi Iheanacho ranks 10th on the list of Premier League players with the most goal-contribution-to-minute ratio.
Taking a deeper dive into statistics of Premier League players with at least 150 appearances, Iheanacho is in 10th place, just behind Chelsea legend, Didier Drogba who is in 9th place. The Super Eagles forward has featured in a hundred and ninety-six Premier League games, scoring forty-two goals and assisting another twenty-five, accruing a goal contribution to an average of every hundred and seventeen minutes.
2. Iheanacho is the first Premier League Player in history to score on all days of the week in the same season.
The striker scored for Leicester City in their loss against Chelsea in May 2021 but entered into the record books as he rained goals that season and led the club to an FA Cup triumph.
3. He is the first “fourth” substitute in FA Cup history
During his time at Manchester City, Iheanacho came on to become the competition’s first substitute against Arsenal in the 2016/2017 season. The English FA decided to create a rule to allow each team an extra substitution, should games move into the extra-time period of knock-out rounds, and Iheanacho became the first-ever fourth substitute in City’s 2-1 loss to Arsenal, replacing Raheem Sterling before the start of the extra-time second half.
4. The Super Eagles striker is the first player in English football to have a goal awarded by the video assistant referee (VAR) system
In Leicester City’s FA Cup win over Fleetwood Town in 2018, Iheanacho became the first player in English Football to have a goal awarded by the VAR. He thought he had doubled the team’s lead, but Jon Moss ruled the goal out for offside. The VAR, Mike Jones, after 67 seconds of consultation, found the Nigerian striker onside and the goal was given.
5. He is the highest-scoring African player in FA Cup history (18 goals)
Across twenty-four appearances in the competition with two clubs, Iheanacho is the highest-scoring African in the competition, with Didier Drogba in second place, with a return of twelve goals in twenty-nine games.
Adefolahan Guerreiro
Adefolahan is a multilingual journalist and writer at Soccernet Nigeria.
With a Bachelor's degree in Electrical and Electronics Engineering and a track record of involvement in College sports, Adefolahan is focused on crafting engaging football content and utilising his language skills and extensive sports knowledge to enhance content accessibility for a global audience.
He has interviewed Nigerian stars like Finidi George, Junior Lokosa, and Abraham Onahi Ogbu.
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I think he is first choice striker at Leicester followed by vardy. daka is 3rd and he has been on almost the entire season