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25 players are registered for duty, but in real the total number looks 29, as they all will be competing for first team places in Championship for Leicester until January. 5th choice goalkeeper Alex Smithies is the only senior player, to miss the cut, seeing Patson Daka and Harry Souttar back in contention for first team places.
Enzo Maresca have no prisoners and explanations for quality players not being picked looks to have a certain relation to them being occupied with plans of leaving the club, and then this makes sense.
Harry Souttar and Jannik Vestergaard are players that can do a similar job, and both do have the height to be good in the air, having that presence, but still Enzo Maresca do value other skills than probably Brendan Rodgers did, picking Jannik Vestergaard instead, but we will see now that the transfer window is closed, with Harry Souttar still a Leicester player.
Patson Dake is in a similar situation, being close to a move to AC Milan and Bournemouth, and also speculation about him being a target for Turkish club Besiktas. At this point, he looks part of the Leicester set up going forward.
Patson Daka and Harry Souttar are at present both away on international duty, being important for their nations Zambia and Australia, and it will be interesting to watch how Enzo Maresca will turn his table to bring both players into the first team contention.
Marescaball is a bit different than how the team played under interim manager Dean Smith and before that under Brendan Rodgers, with the movement of players and a more strict plan, and surprised to see how players are in favour with different managers, set up’s and style.
There are still a number of transfer windows open, so we are not yet convinced that everthing is all settled, so we just have to wait for next week to understand the full picture.
Leicester do have a grand squad of quality, and at this point, too many players equal and similar with a possible chance of too much rotation with so many alternatives to use on different places. The ideal set up is to have 18 to 20 players who are competitive for places, a number of players that can be used in more than one position and have a place or two to young players coming up and through, wiht only joy in their eyes if they reach the bench for a first team game.
So looking at the 25 players at Enzo Maresca’s disposal in that perspective, you will have a number of challenges and hopefully not end up with too many as unhappy as Youri Tielemans, not getting the game time needed to be a happy person and serve positive energy to the establishment.
The key for Enzo Maresca, going forward, is to win football games, but with a defeat or two, his squad looks unbalanced with so many equal players of quality and if he decides to leave players such as Harry Souttar and Patson Daka out of the team, he will surely be questioned as they possess quality to be playing regular football at this level.
25 men squad:
Goalkeepers: Hermansen, Stolarczyk, Ward, Iversen
Defenders: Justin, Pereira, Faes, Vestergaard, Coady, Doyle, Souttar
Midfield: Ndidi, Dewsbury-Hall, Winks, Praet, Choudhury, Casadei
Forwards: Vardy, Iheanacho, Daka, Mavididi, Albighton, McAteer, Yunus, Fatawu,
Marcal-Madivadua, Ben Nelson and new signing from Everton Tom Cannon are U.21, and not needed to be among the group of the registered 25, but then you have a total of 29 players in direct contention for eleven places, surely too many, and then you will get disturbance and too many unhappy faces to deal with, hopefully a plan for that will be addressed.
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