Two wins in the bag over Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur, two months removed from the World Cup. Next up it’s Manchester United away, then Arsenal at home: this is everything Harry Souttar ever dreamed of in his football career.
But while he’s happy and comfortable, perhaps even a bit proud, about being a “figurehead” of sorts for Australian football as the only Socceroo playing in the English Premier League, he’d rather not be rolling solo. The new Leicester City man would much prefer a bit of company.
Harry Souttar has made a terrific start to life at Leicester City.Credit:Getty
And soon enough, he predicts, he’ll have it.
Souttar came away from the World Cup feeling surprisingly dark after Australia’s heroic march to the round of 16 was stopped by the outstretched arm of Argentina goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez. He was consumed by a sense of disappointment so soul-crushing that it even beat, by his own measure, how he felt when he suffered the ACL injury that had plunged his involvement in the tournament into grave doubt.
That bitterness, over time, has subsided and given way to a sense of optimism and clarity about what the Socceroos can accomplish with this group of players, and a rumbling hunger to achieve even more as quickly as possible.
Whatever the future looks like for Australia, the 24-year-old central defender, who is tipped by re-signed coach Graham Arnold as a future captain, will be a huge part of it.
Socceroos fans have known this for a little while, but now the rest of the planet is starting to understand how good Souttar is – first from his star turn in Qatar and now in the Premier League on a weekly basis.
Keys, wallet, Spurs: Harry Souttar had Son Heung-min in his pocket last weekend – and Harry Kane in the other.Credit:Getty
Along the way, Souttar has reminded himself, too.
“I always believed that I had the ability to play at the top level but, obviously, it’s not until you do that you realise if you can or not,” he says. “In saying that, I’ve only played two games – I’m not getting carried away myself.”
An unfortunate own goal on debut against Aston Villa wasn’t exactly the start he’d imagined after his $23 million deadline day move to the Foxes from Stoke City that made him the most expensive Socceroos transfer of all time.
But that moment aside, Souttar didn’t really put a foot wrong, and he stepped things up a gear last weekend in a 4-1 rout of Tottenham Hotspur in which he helped keep star striker Harry Kane to just one shot on goal (his lowest return of the season) and 22 touches (his second-lowest).
“The way we set up, the way that we knew what we were going to do from their goal kicks, everyone bought into it, and it really worked out well,” Souttar says, typically deflecting individual praise onto the collective.
“Hold back in a four, moving into a five when they had the ball was so aggressive, especially with [Dejan] Kulusevski and Son [Heung-min] dropping in them pockets … they’re a great counter-attacking team, Tottenham, they can really hurt you. And there were a few times that they got in where we didn’t quite get it right. But 95 per cent of the time, we stopped it at the source and limited them to the few chances that they had.”
There has been no visible adjustment period for Souttar in the Premier League: after just 180 minutes for Leicester City, it feels as if he’s been at the club, and in this competition, for years.
“It’s certainly a high tempo,” he says. “The big thing that I found was, kind of like the World Cup, it can go from zero to 100 really quick.
“The quality’s there that everyone can keep the ball under pressure. And then you’ve got the mental side of the game – so switched on, you can never take a breather and think, ‘I can relax here’, because every player’s capable of putting a ball somewhere that you’re going to have to defend it. That’s been the biggest difference I’ve found.”
There’s so much for Souttar to look forward to – beyond Monday morning’s [1am AEDT] trip to Old Trafford, where 75,000 United fans will be looking to get under his skin, and Leicester’s clash at home with title challengers Arsenal the following weekend as they bid to climb out of a lower-table logjam that at one point had them pegged as a relegation threat.
Harry Souttar’s famous tackle on Tunisia’s Taha Yassine Khenissi.Credit:FIFA
Next month marks the beginning of a fresh World Cup cycle with the Socceroos. It’s yet to be officially announced, but reports from South America say that Australia will play two friendlies in March in Sydney and Melbourne against Ecuador, a high-octane side that was unfortunate not to reach the knockout phase in Qatar. What’s more, Ecuador are poised to snap up Ricardo Gareca as their new manager – the coach who stood in Peru’s dugout when Andrew Redmayne etched his name into Socceroos folklore in that famous qualifying play-off.
It will be Souttar’s first trip back to Australia – and third in his life – since he hurt his ACL in a World Cup qualifier against Saudi Arabia, and he can hardly wait. So much has changed in the 15 months since: his own reputation; Arnold’s job security; the public perception of the Socceroos, which he’s eager to feel in person after watching those live sites erupt on his phone from Qatar; and the overall health of Australian football, which seems to be on the cusp of an exciting new generation of players in the men’s game.
While Souttar is flying the Aussie flag alone in the Premier League, he expects that will soon change. He name-checks defensive partner Kye Rowles, who recently signed a five-year extension with Scottish club Heart of Midlothian, and Riley McGree, who is spearheading Middlesbrough’s exciting push for promotion from the English Championship under former Manchester United midfielder Michael Carrick, as two players capable of making the step up.
“I can’t get a text back because he’s doing so well. He’s palmed me off the last couple of weeks,” Souttar jokes of McGree.
“I’m so buzzing for him, honestly. He’s done phenomenally well since he got his move, and I think the one thing about him that kind of gets overlooked is how good a technical player he is. He’s thriving there.
“To be honest with you, I don’t think that the lads get a lot of credit over here as what they should do. Whether that’s they came over from Australia and people have a different biased view on it, but I don’t think they’re well enough [regarded] certainly over here, how good they are.
“We’ve only got to look at individual lads – down south, Riley being one of them – that are playing so well. Hopefully it’s not another two years before someone else is there, because I certainly think the talent, the quality is there. I’m sure it won’t be long.”
Watch every match of the UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League and UEFA Europa Conference League on Stan Sport. Returns for the Round of 16, with all the action streaming ad-free, live and on demand from February 15.
