There is a tough fight going on between two surprise packages this season as Leicester City and Tottenham of all the clubs, are fighting it out for the Barclays Premier League title.
Every player from Tottenham’s squad are showing real determination to close the gap at the top. From Lloris to Kane, everyone is chasing the title like a hungry lion. The Lilywhites are performing out of their skins as their star man Harry Kane is enjoying his top spot in the goal scoring charts and have become the first Spurs player to score 22 goals in the Barclays Premier League.
In the Leicester side, they have Jamie Vardy, their goal scoring machine who booked a record of scoring in 11 consecutive matches in the Premier league. He has been a standout performer for the side this season. The Duo (Mahrez and Vardy) have been involved in more goals than any of the Premier League players. Being a winger, he has 16 goals to his name and 11 assists. What about that?
But as the goal scorers stole all the headlines some players from the team did their job exceptionally well of defending their prospects of winning the title. I’m talking about the centre backs of both the teams.
Wes Morgan for Leicester and Toby Alderweireld for Tottenham. Both have played a crucial role for their sides in the quest. Both the players have been a perfect centre back a club could wish for.
As Jan Vertonghen was ruled out due to the injury, Alderweireld along with Wimmer formed a great partnership to steady the ship for the Spurs. The Belgian centre-back is quick and is a hard tackler and obviously not an easy one to beat.
Wes Morgan, on the other hand, will surely be enjoying his fairytale and the centre-back did not make his top-flight debut until he was 30 but is now captaining the Premier League leaders. Alongside Robert Huth, he is a deadly defender who never gets afraid of making strong challenges.
We will try to figure it out that who amongst both had a better season.
Wes Morgan Vs Toby Alderweireld-
For the records, both the players have 34 appearances to their name for their respective sides and in their number of appearances; Wes Morgan has scored 1 goal in the competition whereas Alderweireld has scored 4 goals for his club.
When talking in term of the awards, Wes Morgan was named as the man of the match thrice this season and has been a top man in the team for 5 times. While, Alderweireld has been named as the man of the match twice but was named as the top man in the team for 3 times.
When talking in terms of playmaking, being a defender, the Belgian has 2 assists to his name and has created 7 key passes for the team but on the other hand, Wes Morgan has nothing much to show for in this attribute.
Alderweireld possesses a passing accuracy of 80% in which he has completed 1420 passes in which 201 were successful long balls. Morgan on the other side possesses an average passing accuracy of 74% and has completed just 538 numbers of passes. Not just that, the young Belgian has an amazing passing length as well, a pass length of 26m but the 32-year-old averages just 21m of passing length.
The Jamaica international is almost on par when the talk is about duels they take on. Morgan averages 53% of success in his duels and Alderweireld averages 54%. In their direct take ons, Morgan has succeeded in 10 out of his 12 take ons also, have succeeded in his 85 headed duels out of 146. The Belgian defender stands at a similar area with 7 successful take-ons out of 9. Also, he has achieved success in 55 headed duels out of 89.
The young Belgian averages at least 10 defensive actions per game including blocks, clearances and interceptions. The 32-year-old is not far as well as he averages the same 10 defensive actions per game for his side.
It has been a close call don’t you think? We can consider it as a draw and both the teams can settle down with a point as they had already done this season. The duo has already been recognized this year as they are the centre-backs in the PFA Team of the year for the 2015-16 season.