In effort to return to Europe, Leicester invest in youth

Leicester will rely on an exciting group of young players as they seek to qualify for Europe in 2018-19.

Leicester were always going to struggle following their miracle title run in 2015-16, but three years later, with the overly-protracted Riyad Mahrez transfer saga behind them, and a manager who isn’t interested in playing a watered down version of the tactics that brought them the Premier League, they seem ready to start anew.

The biggest difference between the Leicester of 2018-19 and the Leicester of 2015-16 is, of course, the players. While several stars remain from the title-winning team, only Kasper Schmeichel and Jamie Vardy are likely to play significant roles in 2018-19. The Foxes have used the sale of three other stars of 2015-16, N’Golo Kante, Danny Drinkwater and Mahrez, to build a younger squad with ambitions of fighting for European qualification on a yearly basis.

One player who was expected to be central to those ambitions, center-back Harry Maguire, has been heavily linked with a move to Manchester United following a strong World Cup, but with Leicester in a strong bargaining position, they remain optimistic of keeping hold of the English international.

If he stays, the 25-year-old will form a center-back pairing with Jonny Evans, bought for a heavily discounted price from relegated West Brom, replacing the title-winning partnership of Wes Morgan and Robert Huth. Add in right-back Ricardo Pereira, newly arrived from Porto and expected to replace Danny Simpson, and youth product Ben Chilwell, who has started to overtake Christian Fuchs in the lineup, and the average age of the Foxes’ back four will drop from over30 to 25.

Claude Puel will be hoping that translates to more solidity at the back. Leicester conceded 60 goals last season, the fifth worst mark in the league, and were still able to finish ninth. A youthful back four will be protected by another young star in the making, tackling machine Wilfred Ndidi, who should only get better after his breakthrough campaign a year ago.

Ndidi, still only 21 years old, was handed the unenviable task of replacing Kante, and has done an impressive job, all things considered, leading the league in tackles per game last season with 4.2, 0.9 tackles per game more than Kante. That discrepancy has more to do with the different styles of Leicester and Chelsea than the quality of the two players, but Ndidi appears to be growing into a dominant holding midfielder.

Perhaps the biggest question for Leicester heading into the season is who will join him in the middle of the pitch. Leicester have been mostly very successful in the transfer market over the past few years, but they’ve had their share of misses as well, and several of them were on central midfielders. None of Vicente Iborra, Adrien Silva or Nampalys Mendy have quite put it together at the King Power Stadium yet. One of the three will likely need to step and claim a spot in midfield.

There are no such concerns up front. Vardy remains one of the most productive strikers in the Premier League. He scored 20 league goals last season from only 59 shots. If you get him the ball, he’ll score.

Without Mahrez, however, there are real questions about Leicester’s ability to get him the ball. Shinji Okazaki and Marc Albrighton have performed admirably over the past few years, but neither possesses the quality of Mahrez, and neither seems as well suited to Puel’s slower, more possession-oriented game than they were the counter-attacking approach of Claudio Ranieri and Craig Shakespeare.

And so much of the club’s success this season may be determined by the quality of James Maddison, Demarai Gray and Kelechi Iheanacho. All three are 22 or younger. While they have tremendous up side, they’ve yet to perform consistently in a Leicester shirt.

Gray, who can play on the wing or as a number 10, is the obvious Mahrez replacement, but he managed only three goals and an assist in 35 appearances last season, half of which came off the bench.

If Gray doesn’t perform, Puel may turn to Maddison, bought from Championship side Norwich this summer with the profits from the sale of Mahrez. Last season, Madison scored 14 goals and added eight assists. At 21 years old, he has a bright future, but it remains to be seen how he’ll adapt to life in the Premier League.

Then there’s Iheanacho, who so impressed in his relatively rare cameo appearances for Manchester City. The move to Leicester was supposed to give him more playing time, but he struggled to get into the team last season with Vardy the clear first choice and Puel often preferring to play with only one center forward. He seemed to work his way into Puel’s plans late in the season, as the French manager experiments with some two-striker formations. Leicester will need more from players like Iheanacho as they seek to fill the void left by Mahrez’s departure. Given a decent run in the side, this could be a breakout season for the young Nigerian.