Leicester City's Fox: Christian Fuchs

When the signing of Austria Captain, Christian Fuchs, was announced in June, it was the start of a rather turbulent and somewhat unknown summer for Leicester. The left-back joined on a free from German outfit Schalke, which seemed a good piece of business with his experience both in the Bundesliga and Champions League. It took a while for Foxes fans to see him play, but he’s since cemented his spot in the back five.

Fans took to the player before we’d even seen him kick a ball in the Leicester shirt. With a brilliant name, whether in his native tongue or in English, it seemed perfect. Translated to English, his surname means fox. I’m not trying to suggest that he joined Leicester on this basis alone, but it certainly seemed fitting. Allegedly we beat Swansea City to his signature, though it appears that even if they were interested, a deal was a fair way off. Still only twenty-nine years old, it was slightly surprising that Schalke let him go, he’d made 99 appearances for them before this and has 72 caps to his name internationally, captaining Austria.

Fuchs turned out to be one of the last signings that Nigel Pearson would make at the King Power stadium before departing just under a month later. In came Claudio Ranieri and while most of the players probably wondered what their futures looked like, Fuchs and the other signings may have been even more concerned. After all, the Austrian international had talked about Pearson being a major factor in why he had joined Leicester. The one thing standing in Fuchs’ favour was that the Foxes were in need of a dedicated left-back. Most expected Paul Konchesky to depart during the summer and Ranieri made it crystal clear that there would be no room for him. While Jeff Schlupp has filled in at fullback before, and can cover there, it is not his strongest position.

We’ve got used to rumours surrounding Jeff Schlupp these days. After his trial period with Manchester United, which ended with him returning to us and nothing more, there’s been stories linking him with moves to clubs like Arsenal on and off each transfer window. Many used the signing of Fuchs to add fuel to the fire of these rumours that he’d depart. However when the season started, Claudio Ranieri chose to start Schlupp at left-back for the first few games and no bids arrived for him. Although he featured in the pre-season friendlies, Foxes fans didn’t actually get a glimpse of Christian Fuchs in a competitive match until the Capital One Cup match against Bury at the end of August.

After a fairly solid performance, he had to wait until the next round of the Capital One Cup to get another game, but certainly stamped his authority in it. He was one of the men of the match in the victory over West Ham, setting up the first goal with a long throw, and the winner with a superb cross. It was the first time we’d been able to properly glimpse his attacking abilities. After that performance, he was unlucky to miss out on the next game, but was then handed his league debut against Norwich on October 3rd. That day his contributions were more defensive but he did his job well and hasn’t been out of the starting line-up in the league since, aside from missing the West Brom game through injury.

While providing solid defensive displays, his offensive play has been the most exciting thing. Willing, and able, to go forward, he’s put some perfect, pinpoint crosses into the box. To couple his two assists mentioned above, he also set up the goal that saw Jamie Vardy break the consecutive goalscoring record against Manchester United. Naturally most of the focus and hype around this goal has gone to Vardy, but the more you watch the cross to him, the more you appreciate it. It won’t be a surprise to see him creep up the assists table as the season goes on. A risk with such an attacking fullback is that they can leave you exposed defensively. So far, this hasn’t caused us too many issues as he’s worked cleverly on the overlap with the winger in front of him. That’s primarily been Marc Albrighton so far this season, who’s never shy of dropping back to defend and cover. With Riyad Mahrez’s tracking back and ball-winning skills ever improving, it’s equally reassuring if the wingers continue to regularly swap flanks during a match.

Christian Fuchs also provides us some more options that we’ve not had before. He’s being referred to as the Austrian Rory Delap due to his powerful, long throw-ins. I’m not sure that in my lifetime of supporting Leicester we’ve ever had this in our arsenal and we’ve already been able to use it to our advantage. He’s pretty lethal with his left foot from dead ball situations as well. While we have numerous players who take our free-kicks, he was given an opportunity to take some in the Capital One cup matches and was unlucky not to score.

What Leicester fans probably didn’t anticipate is for the Austrian to be so incredibly interactive on social media. I’m not sure any of us could have predicted quite how much love he would show our football club either. In a time where you can understand why fans feel just so disconnected from the average Premier League football, Fuchs cuts a refreshing figure. He is open, honest and genuinely hilarious. Offering an insight into the off the pitch side of Leicester City, he regularly provides updates also available via his own app. One that has actually produced more interesting content than some of the official club produced videos so far this season. His willingness to communicate with the fans is endearing and he comes across as a genuinely interesting and down to earth guy.

While on the pitch during play he displays an air of calm, cool, collectedness in his play, he’s certainly not scared to show excitement should we score, or win. This is continued onto Twitter and Instagram post-match too and it’s clear that he loves playing football and the colleagues around him right now. He’s made a few videos with the very likeable Shinji Okazaki as well as with Gokhan Inler and definitely has the right, light hearted approach to life. When Leicester finally recorded their first clean sheet of the season, pizza for everybody was on the cards and it didn’t take long for Fuchs to put up a selfie, eating a slice. During a recent international break, a photo of a surname spelling mishap at a hotel went viral and the brilliant hash-tag he came up with, really should be made into car bumper stickers.

Playing so well and a firm fan favourite, it’s easy to forget that Fuchs has only been at the club for six months. This weekend, he faces a first trip to Wales with Leicester to take on Swansea City. It’s unlikely that our formation will change at the back with this away trip in mind and with the Swans in need of three points, it looks like we may have more defending to do. As demonstrated so far though, along with the rest of the side, Fuchs is very capable and dangerous on the counter-attack.