Kelechi Iheanacho could be available to play for Leicester City this week

Kelechi Iheanacho could be available for Leicester City’s fixture against Brighton and Hove Albion, Claude Puel has told.

The 21-year old fractured his metacarpal bone while on international duty with Nigeria earlier this week.

Iheanacho was supposed to feature for the Super Eagles against Serbia in Barnet; however, it was just before the game that boss Gernot Rohr informed about his injury.

The former Manchester City striker is now due to be assessed before tomorrow’s game against Brighton and Hove Albion and may even play with a broken hand at the Amex Stadium.

"“We will see about Iheanacho because he has a broken hand,” said Puel.“We will see if he can play with his injury. We will see [on Friday] in the training session.“I think he fell. It’s not an important injury. We will see if this injury prevents him from playing in this game. Perhaps it might be strange for him to play with a cast.”"

It’s highly improbable that Claude Puel will risk a long-term injury by playing Kelechi Iheanacho tomorrow. The Frenchman does have Shinji Okazaki, Fousseni Diabate and Demarai Gray, all of whom can easily fit into the role that Iheanacho is generally deployed in.

However, that’s not going to worry Puel too much ahead of the trip to Brighton (Iheanacho’s availability) since he isn’t really an important part of the team yet. The young striker has started just nine of the 23 games that he has played in across all competitions this season, scoring six goals and assisting three.

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Five of those goals have come in cup competitions (four in the FA Cup and one in the Carabao Cup), while just one has been scored in the Premier League (against West Bromwich Albion in a 4-1 win).

It’s safe to say that Kelechi Iheanacho would have expected his Leicester City adventure to turn out to be slightly better than what it has been so far.