Goalkeeping is a forever changing art in football, and even in the modern interpretation, there are still sloppy errors being made – with Mads Hermansen one of a couple of keepers to make such errors this past weekend.
The Leicester City stopper has been an ever-present for the Foxes this season, playing in 39 of their 40 league matches played so far.
While playing against Birmingham City on Saturday, a game which the Foxes eventually won 2-1, play was restarted with a goal-kick by Wout Faes, and when Hermansen received the ball from his defender, he took his time and dawdled over playing the ball long.
While taking far too long to launch the ball forward, Birmingham’s Jay Stansfield creeped further and further towards the goalkeeper, and once Hermansen decided to play the pass forward, Stansfield had put enough pressure on the keeper to cause the ball to deflect off of the striker and into an empty Leicester City net for the Blues’ equaliser.
Repeated mistakes will cost Foxes
Leicester City can perhaps count themselves lucky that they were playing against a side lacking in confidence and form.
Birmingham only have two wins and one draw from their last ten league fixtures, and four of the last five have all been losses.
Had the Foxes been playing against a more-form side, a goalkeeping error like Hermansen’s could have rocked the entire team and prevented them from gaining the lead back in a must-win game, given they would have known about Ipswich Town’s derby-day loss to Norwich City earlier on in the 12:30 kickoff.
With the Foxes set to play two playoff-chasing sides in the coming weeks, in the form of West Bromwich Albion and Southampton.
Both of those sides adopting fast-flowing attacking football combined with aggressive and dogged defending, meaning not a lot of time will be awarded to the Foxes when it comes to them playing out from the back, and therefore, if Hermansen is to repeat his unfortunate trick, similar goals will be conceded and will see Leicester slide out of the automatic promotion spots.
Hermansen’s season so far
The Danish ‘keeper was bought last summer by manager Enzo Maresca, signing from Denmark’s Brondby IF for £6m, according to the Athletic, and while being deployed as the modern day ‘sweeper keeper’ by the Italian boss, he has impressed so far.
According to FotMob, the 23-year-old Dane has a 75% save percentage, conceding 36 goals from 142 shots faced, and, as goes with a sweeping role, he has a pass accuracy of 84%.
This is equal with his teammate, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who has starred for the East Midlands side and is now subject to a lot of Premier League interest.
Additionally, the shot-stopper has kept 12 clean sheets, and when comparing him with other goalkeeping compatriots this season, his low record at keeping a shut-out may begin to explain his high save percentage and highlight a worrying weakness to Leicester fans, with the side potentially returning to the top flight.
| Championship goalkeepers statistics 2023/24, according to FotMob | ||
| Player Name | Clean Sheets | Save % |
| Illan Meslier | 17 | 70 |
| Alex Palmer | 16 | 70 |
| Vaclav Hladky | 13 | 65 |
| Mads Hermansen | 12 | 75 |
History could be repeated if Leicester gain promotion
If Leicester do indeed seal promotion back to the Premier League at the first time of asking, then there could be future concerns that history could repeat itself.
When Burnley gained promotion last year, they had conceded 31 goals, and while that number definitely trumps Leicester’s record so far this season, their first choice goalkeeper, Ari Muric, was fourth in the clean sheets table, as Hermansen is at the moment.
This led Vincent Kompany to pick up James Trafford, who had just come back from winning the U21 European Championship, and since then, the Lancashire-based side have endured a horrendous season, conceding 67 goals, the second most in the league.
Now, while this isn’t a suggestion that Leicester will replace Hermansen after just one season between the sticks, or that James Trafford is the sole reason Burnley look set to head straight back down, the fact that both play expansive football with confidence placed in the keepers to slowly build play out from the back, could mean Leicester may share a similar season to the Clarets in 2024/25.
Plus, having recently been reinstated in goal, Muric made an almost identical error this weekend to Hermansen, as we saw Dominic Calvert-Lewin repeat Jay Stansfield’s trick to score the only goal of the game as Everton beat Burnley 1-0, showing that the Premier League can be a cruel mistress to those that stick their old habits.
So, with the Premier League potentially on the horizon, and with both Maresca and Leicester fans wanting the side to avoid the adage “Old habits die hard” when jostling back in the top flight, it could be time that the goalkeeping staff at the Foxes changed Hermansen’s error-strewn ways, before it is too late.
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