Steve Cooper and his player recruitment as Leicester looks far from a settled and consistent unit
Looking at the recruitment over the summer, you cannot really complain, but the route to success is far from what we see at the moment at this football club. Getting close to a point yesterday, shows that it can be done, but small errors and stumbles towards the end, makes it hard to achieve anything.
The transfer window and the squad cap on 25 players seems to be the limit at the moment, throwing in as many players as possible and not really thinking much on what you will do on the field or what the players you sign can contribute with, it looks a very messy process at this point.
The patience is not there, the long term picture is gone and the short story is, get as many legs as possible into the club, without thinking too much on the purpose of it all.
You need to trust what you got and of course questionable to see players such Bilal El Khonnouss, Oliver Skipp, Caleb Okoli, Jordan Ayew, Abdul Fatawu and Michael Golding being signed for a total fee close to €85million. Why was it so important to use all that money, when you, this summer also added Facundo Bounanotte and Bobby De Cordova-Reid for free.
The use of players such as Conor Coady, Jannik Vestergaard and Ricardo Pereira is highly questionable, as this trio do have the skills to perform in Premier League. They have done it before over almost a decade, so why are these players overlooked and taken of service.
You need a strong team, being able to pick your best first eleven without doubt, and the only new recruit that was needed to sign for a major fee was Abdul Fatawu, due to his contract situation regarding what happened last season. Leicester used €17.00m, and that should have been the only money to use over the summer.
Leicester had a settled first eleven capable to performing well at the top level, as we just had to find a replacement for Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, both De Cordova-Reid and Bounanotte being players to fill that potential role, or just adding another free agent to the squad.
Kelechi Iheanacho and Dennis Praet were both players that could have been re-signed as they also would have been players of a level far above, Eduoard and on level with Skipp. Praet is currently at Antwerpen, Iheanacho have signed for Sevilla, both on free transfers.
The team would have been the following:
Hermansen – Pereira, Justin, Vestergaard, Faes – Ndidi, Praet, Winks – Vardy, Fatawu, Mavadidi, Subs: Coady, Nelson, Thomas, Kristiansen, Souttar, Iheanacho, Daka, Bounanotte, De Cordova-Reid, Alves, Ward, Iversen
This would have been a better unit than what is in place at the moment, not really having a plan for what is going on, just a lot of legs fighting for a position in the team, letting players leave on loan and on a free, that would have been good enough to be on the fringe or competed for a place.