When Leicester City signed Wilfred Ndidi in the middle of the 2016/17 season, the team had a clear need for a player with his skill-set.
Leicester’s surprise, maiden top-flight triumph of the previous campaign had seen bigger sides swoop for some of the players who starred in that title-winning season. N'Golo Kante was one of those, and the talismanic Frenchman's exit left a gaping void in the middle of the park that required filling—it was to Ndidi, just shy of his 20th birthday, that manager Claudio Ranieri turned.
Joining the reigning Premier League champions, not quite two years after moving from his homeland to Belgian side Genk for a six-figure sum, Ndidi was keen to make a name for himself, even if that meant trying the giant shoes of a player like Kante for size.
Act One: Wilfred Ndidi grows through Leicester's highs and lows
It took a while, but those shoes eventually fit, even if a tad loosely.
The club may have finished an underwhelming 12th that term, and only marginally improved in the next couple of seasons, yet Ndidi established roots and blossomed.
And he certainly flourished, alongside his teammates, following Brendan Rodgers' appointment to the helm in February 2019. Leicester finished just outside the UEFA Champions League places in successive seasons, also winning the FA Cup and Community Shield, and seemed primed for more.
Those achievements, though, would constitute another false dawn, as Leicester slumped, eventually getting relegated at the end of the 2022/23 season.
But while some jumped ship in the aftermath of that setback, Ndidi stayed and put in the work needed to get Leicester back up.
Act Two: Wilfred Ndidi stars in getting Leicester City back up
In an attacking sense, the Nigeria international was rewarded handsomely. Six goals and six assists in all competitions added up to the most fruitful season of his career—he only has a total of 34 in a Leicester shirt—as the club topped the Championship and rejoined the Premier League on the first attempt.
Much of that increase in offensive output owed a lot to the brilliant attacking football Leicester played under manager Enzo Maresca.
The Italian has, of course, now left the East Midlands following that memorable single season to take charge of Chelsea, but Ndidi expects to carry his form right across the transition to Maresca's successor Steve Cooper—even if the latter is rather conservative in his ways.
“He had some good ideas to share with me,” Ndidi told the club's official website, after his initial interaction with Cooper.
“I feel happy to be a part of this and I can’t wait to get started.”
Act Three: Wilfred Ndidi is ready for Premier League return
So “happy” is he, in fact, that Ndidi—who has already played 273 times for Leicester thus far—has just signed a fresh contract, one that should keep him at the King Power Stadium until at least June 2027, when he will be 30.
Being in his prime, and also as an elder statesman—only fellow midfielder Hamza Choudhury and the seemingly ever-present Jamie Vardy have been in the first team longer—Ndidi has good cause to feel confident about what he can contribute going forward.
Thus begins the next and, likely, final act of Ndidi's time at Leicester: after helping push the traditional heavyweights for European spots and silverware, then rolling up his sleeves to play a part in digging the club out of the mire of demotion, he now hopes to lead the charge to regain a foothold in the English Premier League.
