Leicester look like a team on the up as they continue to learn from their mistakes

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  • Foxes In transition: Leicester.

    Leicester took on a dramatic transformation last season; swinging from everyone’s second favourite club to the devil incarnate and definition of everything that is wrong with modern football, before finding middle ground in mediocrity, and in the wider football landscape – irrelevance.

    After such skyscraper highs and sink-hole lows of the last two seasons, though, that is probably a nice place to be. The Foxes go into this season with the pressure and focus largely off and with the exception of a Riyad Mahrez transfer saga Part II bubbling under, have a settled squad and some eye-catching additions.

    In theory, everything is set up for them to compete with Southampton and Everton to be the ‘best of the rest’ as the Premier League’s elite ‘Big Six’ look to be playing in their own mini league once again.

    Getting the Mahrez situation out of the way first: Leicester, given what they now possess in their squad, how inconsistent he was last season and that he turns 27 in February, this will probably be the last summer they are able to sell him at a genuine premium figure.

    His inept performances, stemming from frustration and uncertainty over his future and a subsequent disinterested attitude, proved endemic of a Foxes team who took their eye off the ball. But Claudio Ranieri simply had to play him with a Champions League campaign to navigate.

    That necessity isn’t there now, at least not at such a glaring level, and in the summer business negotiated by Jon Rudkin, Craig Shakespeare has a rich and varied crop to choose from who look more than capable of cementing their status as a top-10 side, at worst. Selling your most talented player doesn’t always equate to a supposed lack of ambition, sometimes it just makes sense.

    You could argue we’ve been here before 12 months ago when, in the wake of head of recruitment Steve Walsh’s departure to Everton, Leicester hurriedly spent £82 million (Dh391m) to bolster their squad for Europe. Ahmed Musa, Islam Slimani, Nampalys Mendy, Ron-Robert Zieler and Bartosz Kapustka looked, on the face of it, good additions but contributions ranged from sporadic to anonymous.

    Zieler and Kapustka have already gone and the likelihood is that none of that quintet will be at the club come September 1. However, this time Rudkin appears to have got it right, or at least given himself a better chance of getting it right with proven commodities who are also yet to reach their ceiling.

    In Harry Maguire he has a young-ish and improving centre-back, who was excellent in a poor Hull team last term and can energise and remould a defence that was cumbersome and too easy to negotiate for opposing teams.

    Eldin Jakupovic is an astute arrival as Kasper Schmeichel’s No2, also proving his ability with the Tigers while Spanish midfielder Vicente Iborra will fill some of creativity void, assuming Mahrez is off.

    New recruit: Kelechi Iheanacho.

    New recruit: Kelechi Iheanacho.

    Kelechi Iheanacho is the final major addition and – bizarrely – £3m (Dh14m) cheaper than what Slimani cost. The Nigerian averages a Premier League goal every 106 league minutes –predominantly as a substitute – and is just 20. Leicester’s more direct style should suit his game far more than Guardiola’s purposeful passing rhythm. But that buy-back clause was also inserted with good reason by Manchester City.

    Wilfred Ndidi has all the tools to be one of the most devastating and, therefore, sought after box-to-box midfielders in the country; Jamie Vardy is playing for a World Cup place, in what will be his last chance to play in such a tournament; Ben Chilwell and Demarai Gray are also exceptional young talents on an upward curve.
    Just like Leicester.

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