Leicester City remain in transition under Marti Cifuentes with more players likely to leave in the next two transfer windows. Luckily, the Foxes already have considerable talent at the club which could reduce the demand for signings.
After looking through that crop of talent, I think there are three players the Spaniard should give a shot in the Championship. This would give them senior minutes, let us see where they stack up realistically, and offer an insight into where in the team they would be best suited. Here are the three.
Jake Evans
The East Midlands outfit need goals. Our weakest area in terms of productive output is our assortment of strikers. As we have illustrated previously, we have three main striker choices, and none of them have offered either the clinical finishing, link-up, or creativity necessary at this level or the next. We need to give someone else a chance upfront for Leicester.
Jake Evans is perhaps one of the brightest talents in the academy. He is clinical, technically gifted, and already has the physical attributes needed to fulfil the primary impetus of the striker role: break through defenders and get into a scoring position. As such, at such a young age, the Englishman already has a goal for every 130 minutes played across a whole season (currently 150 minutes in the current season of five matches played).
For his age and current physical profile (strength needing the most improvement), the LCFC youth star's output has been sensational. Although this will not directly translate into the senior goals, the potential is there for someone with much more goal-instinct to support Leicester forward.
Ben Nelson
The highly anticipated centre-back has struggled to get game time since recovering from a major injury sustained while at Oxford United. Cifuentes' team have not given much of an update regarding the English defender, but he is not believed to still be unavailable. Since he is an option, he should be given a shot.
The towering central defender exhibits a brilliant technical, physical, and role-suitedness for Leicester City. Nelson is great with both feet, good under pressure, and maintains a composed mentality during games. This leads to higher duel win-rates and less challenges, focusing on good positioning, forcing mistakes, and excellent passing from the back.
Versus our current choices, Nelson would provide a level-head that is also able to move faster, accelerate faster, and therefore respond quicker to threats than Jannik Vestergaard while being significantly more consistent than Wout Faes. We also need to give him time to play, since losing such a promising talent due to not playing him would be worse than being able to sell him for good money at a later date.
Michael Golding
Signed from Chelsea, the high-potential midfielder has yet to really get an opportunity to shine in the senior side. Partly, this is due to the myriad options Leicester City have in midfield: this is especially the case with Harry Winks, Jordan James, Boubakary Soumare, and rather expensive signing Oliver Skipp. Getting in ahead of that is obviously not easy.
However, we have seen under Marti Cifuentes the critical role our midfield plays in providing almost the entire progressive and initial creative stages of play: after bringing Winks back into the fold, and with the brilliant defensive-to-attacking box-to-box talent that is James, we have a finished article. When we were using our other options, the Foxes felt lethargic and impotent for the most part.
This is where a player such as Golding can shine. At his young age, his technical quality and role-suitedness are fantastic: he can turn to carry or pass on a dime, has pace to progress, and can offer the springboard of creativity to initiate attacking stages. Clearly, there is potential in there if used as depth so the senior side does not need to rely on suboptimal styles.
Marti Cifuentes does not just need to succeed in this season; he also needs to prepare for the next one. This can only be done by giving players like these three some chances to demonstrate what they can offer the Foxes, and game time to actually develop into what we need.