Leicester City signed Kelechi Iheanacho from Manchester City during the summer.
Leicester City manager Craig Shakespeare wants to ease new signing Kelechi Iheanacho into the Premier League season. The 20-year-old moved to the King Power Stadium last week from Manchester City for a fee reported to be £25 million by the Guardian.
However, Leicester City fans would have had their hearts in their mouths when the Nigerian hobbled off after just 17 minutes on the pitch during the friendly game against Borussia Monchengladbach. The youngster was visibly disappointed when he made his way back into the dugout throwing his boots in frustration.
Kelechi Iheanacho Leicester throws his boot down after he is injured during the preseason friendly against Borussia Moenchengladbach
Manager Craig Shakespeare speaking to Leicester Mercury dismissed talks of a serious injury, “He seems fine”, he said, “The first thing is the physios aren’t showing great concern which is a good sign.”
The youngster who wasn’t in Pep Guardiola’s plans for this season didn’t have any minutes in Manchester City’s pre-season and is understandably short of match fitness. Shakespeare, in the same interview, admitted that he had plans of playing the youngster for just 20 minutes, but took him off even earlier as he didn’t want to take any chances.
“I’d always got plans that he was having 20 minutes. He is behind in terms of his fitness with the others. He’s just joined in. But you saw as well his sharpness is there, it’s just his overall fatigue. I don’t want to play him too long at the moment”, he said.
Leicester City start their Premier League campaign with an away game against Arsenal and given their depth of attacking options (Jamie Vardy, Islam Slimani, Shinji Okazaki, Leonardo Ulloa and Ahmed Musa) it does make sense for the manager to ease him into the Premier League picture.
However, when he is fit, it remains to be seen how Shakespeare plans to use his new signing, especially with Jamie Vardy being a striker of a similar ilk.
Jamie Vardy of Leicester celebrates scoring to make it 2-1 with Kelechi Iheanacho
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