Leicester face Brentford on Friday aiming for only a third win in 12 Premier League games under Ruud van Nistelrooy. No player is more important to their hopes of getting it than Bilal El Khannouss.
The 20-year-old midfielder, a £21m signing from Genk in August, has been one of few positives in a poor season for the club, starting every game since Van Nistelrooy succeeded Steve Cooper in November and showing star quality in adversity. The threat of relegation looms but his own future at the top looks secure.
He was vital to Leicester’s two Premier League wins under the new boss. El Khannouss set up Jamie Vardy’s opener and scored the second himself in the 3-1 victory over West Ham in his first game in charge. He struck the winner in last month’s 2-1 triumph at Spurs.
Both of his goals in those games, along with his sublime, outside-of-the-boot strike in Leicester’s Carabao Cup loss to Manchester United in October, were passed into the net in a style familiar to his coaches at Genk, where his guile shone through from a young age.
“We did a lot of shooting with him. Not shooting with power, but always going to the corners,” Miguel Ribeiro, Genk’s first-team technical and individual coach, tells Sky Sports.
That precision shines through in his game now. El Khannouss is a joy to watch and a joy to work with too, according to Ribeiro, who says his positive impact in the Premier League, after racking up nearly 100 senior appearances for Genk, has come as no surprise.
“I always thought he would adapt very fast when he got the chance because he did it at Genk. From the first moment he trained with the first-team, it was clear. Maybe he had to make some steps physically, because he was 17 or 18, but football-wise it was easy for him.”
The Belgian club have a reputation for nurturing young talent having developed Kevin De Bruyne, Leandro Trossard and many others.
They have similarly high hopes for El Khannouss.
“We took him when he was 14 from Anderlecht, where they didn’t believe in him as much as we did,” says Ribeiro. “He was a tiny, slight boy at that age, very thin. But he had unbelievable feet and great vision, and he was always hungry to learn and do extra stuff.
“The way you are seeing him play for Leicester is the way he trained here with us. Always happy, with a big smile, working hard. Of course, he needs the confidence of his coach, but I think he has got that with Van Nistelrooy, becoming a starter. You can see he has grown.”
Having only started four games of a possible 15 under Cooper, El Khannouss has been one of two ever-presents under Van Nistelrooy along with James Justin. Leicester’s results have been poor. But it is not just in their rare victories that El Khannouss has shone.
Arsenal kept him quiet last time out but he looked right at home against top opposition in the 2-0 loss to Manchester City in December, during which he made twice as many dribbles as any other player and ranked top for duels won and final-third passes. He was excellent again in the recent FA Cup loss to Manchester United.
Those were standout performances from the Morocco international, who has 18 caps for his country, but his fast footwork and technical class have delighted supporters consistently.
In a position somewhere between a No 10 and a left-sided No 8, El Khannouss glides across the turf, honing in on gaps in defences and trying to make things happen. He is Leicester’s spark. Supporters showed how highly they rate him when they booed the decision to take him off early in last month’s loss to Fulham.
Bilal El Khannouss
“He never has a problem to play under pressure. He never hides,” adds Ribeiro. They were important traits as a teenager at Genk; they are even more important now, in the context of a relegation battle at Leicester. “He is not afraid to take risks and he almost always plays forward,” continues Ribeiro. “He finds could spaces between the lines and sees the game very fast.”
Genk were patient with his physical development – “we don’t push young guys to do too much gym; we let them grow,” says Ribeiro – and instead sought to maximise his innate ability to read the game.
“I used to tell people that he had eyes on his back, because he sees everything,” chuckles Ribeiro. “When you watch him, you see he is always checking around him and looking over his shoulders.
“That was something I talked about with him when he began starting for the first-team at Genk, that he needed to constantly check his back. They call it ‘scanning’ but, for me, it’s just checking your shoulders to see where the spaces are.
“Again, he took the advice really well.”
Friday 21st February 7:30pm
Kick off 8:00pm
That work later ensured El Khannouss was equipped for the increased speed of the Premier League. There was also a focus on how he received the ball. “We worked on fast turns, to immediately face the opponent’s goal and give himself more options instead of just opening wide on one side,” says Ribeiro
“If you turn all the way, you can give yourself five or six options for the next pass, using your left or your right foot. Now, you can see that he turns fantastically fast on the ball, even though he is not a short player. People watch him do it now and say, ‘Wow’, but we have seen it for years.”
Ribeiro describes El Khannouss’s future as “very, very bright” and Van Nistelrooy sees it the same way. “I think you’re going to see a lot more of him with his age and profile,” said the Leicester boss earlier this month. “His potential is there to be a top player in the Champions League. He can go a long way.”
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Bilal El Khannouss scored the winner in Leicester’s 2-1 win over Spurs
The next step, in the short term, is to increase his end-product.
El Khannouss became key for Genk, twice winning the Belgian league’s best young player award. But his numbers were modest, albeit as a teenager, with four goals and 10 assists in 61 league appearances. The same is true at Leicester, where he has two goals and one assist in 20 Premier League games so far.
How they would cherish a spike in his productivity now. In fact, their hopes of Premier League survival may depend on it. At only 20 years old, though, and a shining light in a struggling team, El Khannouss already looks destined for big things.
Watch Leicester vs Brentford live on Sky Sports Premier League and Main Event from 7.30pm on Friday Night Football; kick-off 8pm
