New Leicester City head coach Marti Cifuentes has taken the reins at King Power Stadium. Although closely following his arrival at the Seagrave training facility, the squad flew to Austria for their usual summer camp. Consequently, after only one friendly outing, a partially public team meeting, photographs of the group enjoying practice and downtime - a good feeling prevails at LCFC at the moment.
When perusing photos from the town of Stegersbach, in the Güssing district of Burgenland state, the Foxes stars and youngsters appear happy. And that is good to see following their apparent unhappiness under Steve Cooper last season; as unfairly exhibited in Copenhagen. Not to mention the squad seeming disenchanted with Ruud van Nistelrooy's tutelage.
Happily for City's Blue Army fan base, many positives are already emerging with discontent transitioning to a circulating optimism. You never would have guessed that only two weeks ago! He appears to be creating an identity Leicester fans can be proud of. Therefore we will now briefly run through aspects which have caught Foxes of Leicester's eye or impressed us.
Marti Cifuentes is already creating an identity Leicester City fans can get behind
First of all, Cifuentes can speak the language of football fluently. His ideas and influences (Johan Cruyff and total football) are pleasantly surprising to the faithful. Retaining Andy King as his first team coach was a particularly popular and possibly astute move on the Catalan's behalf.
Intensity, positional changes and pressing were notably improved from the first game. Obviously only one friendly has occurred, but supporters are keen to see what Cifuentes has up his sleeve next.
"I do believe in a certain way of playing football, and we need to be very strong on those areas to build an identity that is aligned with the history of the club."Cifuentes
A strong foundation helps build a new LCFC identity, the 43-year-old believes. When pressed on signings, he wasn't forthcoming. Though he admitted the roster will soon be "trimmed". Parallels with former boss Enzo Maresca are prevalent too.
"This team did really well under Enzo and a lot of players that are still here, and obviously that sets a reference point."Cifuentes
Cifuentes' approach is fresh and modern. He will deploy youth if necessary and viable, as he did at Queens Park Rangers. He is committed to fearlessly returning the East Midlanders back to the promised land where they belong: the Premier League.