For the second consecutive season Nigerian international midfielder Wilfred Ndidi has failed to emerge as the best tackler in the Premier League.
The Leicester City star did not even make the top three no thanks to a combination of a tear in his abductor muscle and a thigh muscle strain which limited his appearances to just 26 of the 38 games played in the just ended season.
Ndidi had 96 successful tackles, two behind Tottenham’s Danish midfielder, Pierre-Emile Højbjerg while Leeds United’s Luke Ayling with 108 tackles emerged the surprise top tackler for the season.
The Super Eagles star however made eight more successful tackles than Manchester United’s Aaron Wan-Bissaka, the man who upstaged him last season and halted his run for a hat-trick of top tackler awards.
During the 2016/17 campaign, having joined Leicester City in January 2017 from Belgian side KRC Genk, Ndidi completed 68 tackles in just 17 appearances.
His first full season (2017/18) in England resulted in him playing 33 times in the Premier League, where his 138 tackles left him 21 clear of Everton’s Idrissa Gueye, now at Paris Saint-Germain, and 25 ahead of former Fox N’Golo Kanté.
The Lagos-born midfielder was once again a star man for the Foxes in England’s highest tier of professional football, as he finished the 2018/19 campaign with a Premier League-high of 143 tackles – one more than Gueye and 14 more than Aaron Wan-Bissaka.
In the 2019-20 campaign, the midfielder finished next to Manchester United’s Wan-Bissaka due largely to knee and harmstring injuries which ensured he missed six out of the 38 ganes the Foxes played in the English top flight.