Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers commented on his side’s need for a healthy shake-up. Here are the players at risk according to the gaffer himself.
Let me paint you a picture: time is at late afternoon on a cold and humid Sunday. Rodgers’ Foxes are defending FA Cup champions looking to battle passed Championship club and East Midlands rivals Nottingham Forest.
The King Power travellers collapsed 4-1 with a team that should have won. There was no excuse: the tactics were wrong, the effort from the team was wrong, and plenty of unrest resulted from the depressing fixture. A disastrous occasion for the East Midlands outfit. Therefore, the Northern Irish Foxes boss made interesting comments regarding the future of personnel currently at the club, as well as a transfer warning to opposition clubs.
Leicester City players warned
After a dismal performance reminiscent of our late season collapses in the previous two seasons, the comments Rodgers made about transfers would have given some players a real kick in the back. As per LeicestershireLive:
"“You might be looking up to five or six players… at the end of a cycle of working for three years together… You need to reintroduce more hunger to the team, more quality to the team. If we’re going to compete, we have to do that, that’s the reality”"
Those are massively significant comments. Further expounding them, the gaffer threatened eight of the players who featured in that defeat as they were present at the club before he took the reins.
The boss wants to make the side more his own. In the previous summer window, the Foxes brought in several players who have a winning mentality. From league winners Boubakary Soumare and Patson Daka to former stars like Ryan Bertrand. Now, it is a time to bring quality to the starting XI.
Who is at risk?
Looking at the XI who lost to Forest, here are the players who appeared during the fixture including subs. Danny Ward, Luke Thomas, Caglar Soyuncu, Daniel Amartey, James Justin, Youri Tielemans, Wilfred Ndidi, Harvey Barnes, James Maddison, Ademola Lookman, Kelechi Iheanacho, Ricardo Pereira, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, and Patson Daka.
Pereira, Nacho, Madders, Barnes, Amartey, Cags, Ndidi, Ward, and technically Thomas were all there at the club before the Northern Irishman joined. Of course, there are a couple obvious players in that list who are not at risk: Ricky P, Barnes, Ndidi, and Maddison chief among them. Though stars of the former Norwich City man’s calibre have been sold by LCFC in the past.
However, Cags has not proven himself to be alone an elite player. The Turkish international has required a world class teammate or leader beside him to prevent myriad errors and technical mishaps.
Furthermore, Big Dan is simply not a high enough level, regardless was supporters feel towards the player. The Nigerian goalscorer is one of the most at risk players. Despite becoming a consistent player and striker, Iheanacho has not featured enough for Leicester City and may be looking to move on for the sake of his career. Plus, with Daka and Jamie Vardy also present, the likelihood of starring more is minimal.
Beyond these players, Ayoze Perez, Jonny Evans, Marc Albrighton, Papy Mendy, and Hamza Choudhury are at risk for their own reasons. With the two midfielders, they will never get ahead of Ndidi and the King Power club could do with more space for attack minded midfielders.
Albrighton is least at risk out of this bunch, more likely to be superseded – finally – by a prolific, goalscoring, assisting, playmaking, right-winger rather than another left-winger being forced onto the right flank. Perez however is at risk because he can’t make any position his own.
Leicester needs at least one new first team quality centre-back, a prolific right-winger, a new attack minded midfielder, and possibly left back. There are plenty of choices, Rodgers has his work cut out for him to not repeat the mistakes of Jannik Vestergaard and Bertrand.