Stephy Mavididi has been on fire for Leicester City but Enzo Maresca still wants more from his electric winger.
Stephy Mavididi has scored five goals in his last five outings, overtaking Jamie Vardy and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall as Leicester’s top scorer with eight goals.
In their 1-1 draw against Ipswich Town, the fleet-footed Frenchman opened the scoring with a beautifully curled effort.
Cutting in from the left flank and caressing the ball into the net is becoming a trademark move for Mavididi, with the 25-year-old transforming his blistering performances into goals.
The £10k-a-week phenom is devastating on the counter-attack and frightens the life out of Championship defenders with his electrifying pace and superb dribbling.
Indeed, Mavididi ranks inside the top 5% against his positional peers in the second tier for progressive carries, top 6% for touches in the attacking penalty box and top 11% for progressive passes received, as per FBref.
Despite putting up such impressive numbers, Enzo Maresca has still been overly critical of the Frenchman throughout this campaign.
At the end of October, he claimed Mavididi was “still at 50 per cent” and said that once he demonstrated his qualities every match, he’d be able to step up a level.
While his recent form suggests he’s done that, the Italian still isn’t satisfied enough with his improvement and has picked out some of the finer details in his performance that need ironing out.
Enzo Maresca criticises Mavididi’s decision-making vs Ipswich
Although it would be easy for Maresca to shower his star winger with praise following his performance against Ipswich, the manager accepts there is always room for improvement and this is how players can elevate their game to new heights.
Late on in that match, Leicester were fighting to hold onto their precious one-goal lead and Mavididi kept on running into trouble more times than he should have.
Maresca believes him losing possession high up the pitch was partly responsible for allowing the Tractor Boys to pile on the pressure which eventually led to their injury-time equaliser.
He said: “He was brilliant tonight,
“He scored a very good goal, but in the second half, in the last 10 or 15 minutes, he lost two or three balls going one against three, one against four. These are the moments we need to manage better.
“From that action, we lose the ball and concede counter-attacks. It’s a moment when you play every three days with 10 minutes to go where you need to manage a little bit better. He scored a fantastic goal, he played very well, but there are some things he can improve like the situations we mentioned.”
While Mavididi has been excellent, the improvements Maresca has urged him to make are easy fixable.
It’s a testament to how talented he is when his manager can only pick out one minor detail as a negative to his performance.
Indeed, he looks every bit like a Premier League footballer and that is an ambition he’ll be fulfilling sooner rather than later.