'Virgil van Dijk of ISL' - Kerala Blasters' Marko Leskovic is yet to be dribbled past!

Kerala Blasters are in a rich vein of form going into the ISL (Indian Super League) fixture against Mumbai City FC at the Tilak Maidan Stadium on Sunday. They are unbeaten in the last 10 of their 11 matches and are sitting at the top of the league table with 20 points from 11 matches.

The trio of Adrian Luna, Alvaro Vasquez, and Jorge Diaz has been hitting all the right chords and with Sahal Samad complimenting them, Ivan Vukomanovic's team has established themselves as a formidable unit. With six assists, Luna has equalled Jessel Carneiro and Josu Prieto's record of most assists in Kerala Blasters' history.

In defence, Marko Leskovic has been a stable presence with youngster Ruivah Hormipam. In fact, Leskovic is the only player yet to have been dribbled past by any opponent - a very similar record enjoyed by Liverpool's Virgil Van Dijk when he started playing for Liverpool.

ISL

On the other hand, Mumbai City FC have been going through a slump as they are winless in their last five games. Their form went south after suffering a 3-0 loss to Blasters. This is their second-longest winless streak after they went on a seven-game unbeaten run in 2015. So Des Buckingham's men will be desperate to return to winning ways and reclaim top position from the Yellow Army.

Let us now take a look at some of the interesting stats provided by Opta Jeev involving the two teams.

1. Kerala Blasters FC have maintained a clean sheet in each of their last two Indian Super League games, the last time they maintained a run of three consecutive clean sheets in the league was in December 2014, in the first edition of the league.
2. For any player to have attempted a minimum of 10 shots in the current Indian Super League season, Mumbai City’s Ygor Catatau has the best shooting accuracy this term (73%). Eight of the 11 shots he has attempted this season has been on target.
3. Based on the “Opta’s Expected Assists” model, Mumbai City FC’s Ahmed Jahouh is the player with the best difference between expected assists (+2.12) and actual assists (six) in the current Indian Super League campaign after the end of MD12 (+3.88).
4. For any player to have attempted a minimum of 150 passes in the Indian Super League, Mumbai City’s Rahul Bheke has a passing accuracy of 89% in the league. He has completed 505 of his 568 attempted passes.
5. Mumbai City FC have failed to find the back of the net in each of their last two Indian Super League games, the last time the Islanders failed to score in three consecutive games was way back in February 2019 in the 2018-19 season.