After a fresh defensive injury, Brendan Rodgers’ Leicester City have some tough choices on how to get through this crisis. Here are the options.
David Ornstein reports that Jannik Vestergaard has picked up a knock in training for the match. This means the King Power side will be without several important defenders.
James Justin, Ryan Bertrand, Vestergaard, Jonny Evans, and Wesley Fofana are all out, while Timothy Castagne has only just returned.
With so many senior team and first team centre-backs and left-backs out, we know that Luke Thomas and Caglar Soyuncu are 100% starting: there is no one else to play. However, there are several options for Leicester City that will plaster over the injury crisis.
Leicester City: Use the right-backs
Brendan Rodgers’ first option would be to make use of either Daniel Amartey or the returning Castagne to fit in alongside Soyuncu.
Both have been used at CB last season, though both were preferred to play as part of a back three rather than as the primary partner of another CB.
Amartey is not a terrible defender, but his positional awareness lets him down a lot. We saw during the Wolverhampton Wanderers match that he can get bullied and caught out if he is not focused.
Castagne should avoid being played at centre-back. Not because he would play poorly, but more so due to his commonly understood role at the club: he is an attacking right-back who likes to whip in low crosses and link up with attacking-midfielders.
Playing players out of understood positions can cause issues with how the individual plays during the match, but also with those around the player expecting to see them in one place but suddenly seeing them elsewhere.
Amartey would be the best choice if Leicester choose this route.
There are still centre backs
There are more centre backs than perhaps we give ourselves credit for. However, with three out, the only two registered are Filip Benkovic and Benjamin Nelson. The young Harvey Godsmark-Ford would not have to be registered to play.
Nelson would likely be playing for the U23’s in their fixture at the King Power against Derby County at 19:00 on 23rd August. Yes, that is an hour before the travelling Foxes face West Ham United.
Benkovic is a decent CB. He is tall and strong, though perhaps lacking the physicality necessary for 90 minutes in the Premier League. His danger sense has also been impressive, though his judgement of when to tackle/rush out/track back to snuff out danger has been less so.
I do not believe Nelson is ready for the Premier League, though is extremely promising, and Godsmark-Ford is nowhere near experienced enough. So, if Rodgers would like some advice, start Filip Benkovic and bring on Amartey later on to form a back three.
Sign a player or loan one in
If Vestergaard’s injury is longer than one or two weeks, then the Foxes should look into bringing in more reinforcements. This could be Kurt Zouma from Chelsea, who would be both experienced and another potential leader.
Zouma is wanted by a couple of clubs, and Chelsea do not appear too keen on keeping him for much longer.
Leicester City have also been heavily linked with Takehiro Tomiyasu of Bologna, he would be available for up to £20m at most, though it is getting late in the window to make deals. He may also be snatched up on a loan to buy deal.
There are of course many more options that could be selected: from desperate splurges on James Tarkowski, to an underwhelming loaning of Ryan Bennett.
My preference is for a Benkovic start with Amartey to be used as CB backup until Vestergaard or Evans are back. Click here for FoL’s West Ham vs. Leicester preview.