Kelechi Iheanacho’s shirt is right despite seven years of extremes at Leicester City

The writing was on the wall before it was on Kelechi Iheanacho’s shirt.

Leicester City lifted the Championship trophy on Saturday to kick off a bank holiday weekend, but while the entire squad was dressed in blue, Iheanacho wore a white shirt over his match shirt. The message on the front read: “We have history. When I’m gone, you’re going to miss me.”

It appears to be a lyric by Nigerian artistes Check and Fireboy DML and you don’t know that you have to read too deeply into it to connect it to Iheanacho’s future at City. There has been no confirmation that he will leave at the end of his contract next month, but at this stage it would be a surprise if he was still at the club come the new campaign.

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Whether City choose not to offer him a new deal, or whether Iheanacho has signaled to the club that he has no intention of signing one, the result is the same: the striker’s seven years at the King Power Stadium have come to an end. And it looks like it could be going that way for some time.

While sharing the attacking duties with Jamie Vardy in the opening months of the campaign, injury and a month-long spell at the Africa Cup of Nations back-to-back at the start of the winter. During that time, Patson Daka impressed Enzo Maresca and Vardy began playing twice in a row more regularly.

In fact, Iheanacho hasn’t started a single game for City in 2024, his last starting XI coming in the 2-1 win against West Brom at the start of December. Since the start of the year, he has made just five substitute appearances.

So whether City let Iheanacho go or the 27-year-old chooses not to extend his stay is understandable. Iheanacho has not featured prominently in Maresca’s plans for some time and an exit seems quite sensible for both parties.

If this is a farewell, then how true is Iheanacho’s shirt? Will he be missed? Based on this season, possibly not.

It was something of a coup last summer when he stayed at the club given his record at Premier League level. Sixty-seven goals and assists at a rate of one every 117 minutes isn’t too far from the division’s world-class players. Surely, then, the championship would be a torment for him?

It didn’t turn out that way. As part of Maresca’s game plan, the centre-forward must be able to receive the ball at the feet of Jannik Vestergaard or Harry Winks and link play with the attacking midfielders and wings who might run beyond him. This seemed perfect for Iheanacho’s style, with the Nigerian previously showing his hold-up play and his vision and creativity in creating chances for others.

But there were problems. While Iheanacho was the best of City’s forwards at holding up the ball and dismissing his teammates, he came the deepest in this regard. This meant he was then unable to sustain the attack he had set up, leaving City without a focal point in the box.

Vardy and Daka, although not as involved in the build-up, had the pace to get the attack going again when they fell deep. It didn’t feel like Iheanacho could do that and so his attacking threat diminished.

It hasn’t helped that he has a tendency to wander the pitch, only adding fuel to the fire that his heart hasn’t been in it this term. His half-hour as a substitute at Ipswich on Boxing Day did not help that reputation. It also meant he was least effective when pressing up front, another factor in Maresca turning to other strikers more often in the second half of the campaign.

He is a player who can blow hot and cold and at extremes. Throughout his City career, there have been games where his ball control is bafflingly poor and attacks constantly break down on him. There were also games where he was incredible, a scoring threat and an elite creator all rolled into one. For those games, Iheanacho, if he leaves, should be fondly remembered.

It was never going to be easy for him. He arrived for a hefty fee of £25m and was in competition with the biggest player in the club’s history. When he stepped in for Vardy, either in cup games or when the number nine needed rest, comparisons were inevitably made. Iheanacho was rarely up to Vardy.

His confidence plummeted and he went on a 12-month drought. There were times in that race when he was booed on the field by his own fans. That won’t help an attacker with his luck.

The last-minute VAR winner against Everton, when he was made up by his team-mates, turned things around for a year. But they went from bad to worse again in December 2020 when he failed to convert a penalty against Crystal Palace and let the miss hang over him.

Then came February 2021, with James Maddison and Harvey Barnes injured, Brendan Rodgers had to try something new. The line-up was changed and Iheanacho came on alongside Vardy. It led to one of the best runs of form a City player has ever had.

If not for his 16 goals and three assists in 19 games, City would not have stayed in the Champions League race for as long as they did and won the FA Cup. Yes, the heroics of Youri Tielemans and the heroics of Kasper Schmeichel beat Chelsea at Wembley, but in the fifth round, quarter-finals and semi-finals, City scored five goals, Iheanacho scored four of them and set up the other.

He finishes with 61 goals, 21st in the club’s all-time tally and just one behind Andy King and Steve Walsh. He is the club’s all-time leading scorer in cup competitions.

He had personality too, whether dedicating his hat-trick against Sheffield United to “all the mothers in the world” on Mother’s Day, losing his own mother as a child, or saying he had to score a goal in the last minute. FA Cup winner over Brighton because it was too cold to play extra time. On and off the pitch, he had the ability to bring joy to City fans.

So, in the end, Iheanacho is right. He will be missed. And probably more if he now goes on to produce heroics for another English club. Because at 27, and with his talent, he has much more time to shine.

What is your favorite Iheanacho moment at City? Let us know in the comments section below.