Ghanaian starlet has shown his potential

LEICESTER City’s promotion to the Premier League means they are obliged to pay Sporting Lisbon 17m euros for Abdul Fatawu when the transfer window opens in June.

- Chris Dunlavy

Nobody at the King Power is complaining. After a season that yielded six league goals, 13 assists and the hattrick that effectively sealed promotion, the Foxes would have paid up regardless of the clause inserted in Fatawu’s contract when he arrived on loan from Portugal last summer.

“We are very happy with Abdul,” said Leicester boss Enzo Maresca after the 20-year-old’s treble in the 5-0 win over Southampton last week.

“He’s a player that is here thanks to Martyn Glover. Martyn showed me him last summer and when I saw him I said this is the right profile we need. It was his idea.”

Glover, appointed Leicester’s head of recruitment in 2022, has a mixed record at the King Power but deserves credit for securing a player who, though unproven in European football, was certainly not an unknown quantity.

Fatawu, who hails from the city of Tamale in northern Ghana, made his debut for regional side Steadfast aged 15, and within two years had scored 20 goals in 27 matches.

At 16, he won player of the tournament at the Under-20 African Cup of Nations. Later that year came the first of 17 caps for Ghana, and his first international goal.