The path between the King Power and the King’s Road has become increasingly worn in recent years, with mixed results for its travellers: N’Golo Kante is chief of the trail’s tourist board; Danny Drinkwater is still piling in with the one-star reviews.
When Chelsea go to Leicester in the Premier League on Saturday, there will be a former Foxes manager in the away dugout and, most likely, an ex-player at the heart of the visiting defence. But of the three other former Leicester men on Chelsea’s books, how many will even make the matchday squad?
Not Ben Chilwell, surely, who has not been named on the bench in the league even once this season. Maybe not Cesare Casadei either, who this time last year was impressing on loan at Leicester - so much so that he was recalled in January - but has been used exclusively in cup competitions by Chelsea this term.
What, though, of Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Leicester’s players’ and fans’ player of the year during their Enzo Maresca-led Championship triumph last season, and a £30million purchase when following the Italian to Stamford Bridge?
The Blues’ lack of early return on that investment has gone rather underreported during a promising start to the season in which, really, it has not mattered. There is an acceptance, perhaps, that in a squad this big, with so many relatively new arrivals, not every addition can be a hit. Indeed, when the most expensive footballer in British history cannot get into the side, it is not surprising that scrutiny is elsewhere.
But on an individual note, a return to Leicester, in whatever capacity, sets the difference between the player that dominated the Championship last season and the one that has made almost no impact on the new campaign into focus.
Last term, Dewsbury-Hall scored 12 goals and registered 15 assists across competitions. With a third of this season gone, the respective figures read none and one. In fact, the tallies for goal involvements in Chelsea matches are identical: one of those 15 assists last season came in the FA Cup at Stamford Bridge.
Opportunities, in terms of volume, have been thin on the ground (Dewsbury-Hall has made just 10 appearances since joining Chelsea and not played a Premier League minute in two months). But those on offer have also been soft, including against Conference League cannon fodder and League One’s Barrow in the Carabao Cup. As Joao Felix and Christopher Nkunku can attest, even excelling in midweek is not necessarily enough to force a breakthrough, but it would certainly help.
While those forwards have direct, in-form rivals blocking their route into Chelsea’s first-team, the bigger concern for Dewsbury-Hall is that it is not obvious which shirt he should be trying to win.
With Romeo Lavia having sat out Belgium’s recent Nations League matches with a niggle, and Moises Caicedo and Enzo Fernandez only back from South America on Thursday, Saturday’s fixture might have presented a chance. In similar circumstances, away at Bournemouth after September’s international break, Dewsbury-Hall had been in line to play, only to come down ill.
But when asked about his alternatives at the base of midfield, Maresca name-checked both Casadei and Renato Veiga, without mentioning the Englishman at all.
Now perhaps that is because Dewsbury-Hall has recently played further forward, including on the right-wing at Newcastle in the Carabao Cup. Except when Maresca has spoken of having two players for each of those positions - Cole Palmer and Felix at No10, Mykhailo Mudryk, Jadon Sancho, Noni Madueke and Pedro Neto out wide - Dewsbury-Hall’s name has not tended to come up either.
The reality, increasingly, looks one of ill-fit. Dewsbury-Hall was at his best for Leicester as a central midfield No8 with licence to attack. At Chelsea, where Maresca has favoured a double-pivot with Palmer at No10, that role does not really exist. Maybe that will change as the season’s wears on, if, for instance, a Caicedo-Lavia axis comes to look overly conservative against weak opposition at home. But Felix and Fernandez look at this stage more likely options if it does.
In September, Maresca suggested Dewsbury-Hall needed time to adapt to no longer being the centrepiece in Leicester’s puzzle. Another two months down the line at Chelsea, and still it is not clear where he slots in at all.
