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When Leicester City players report back for pre-season with Enzo Maresca’s side to play catch-up
Leicester City will be playing catch-up this pre-season with several of their Championship rivals already back in training ahead of the new campaign.
City’s senior players do not return to their Seagrave training base for the first session of the summer until Monday, July 3, when they will meet new manager Enzo Maresca. But that is two weeks after some of the clubs they will be facing in the new season, with the likes of Watford, West Brom, and Cardiff among those to have already called players back for training.
It is not out of the ordinary that City’s squad would be on holiday until a later date, with their Premier League season not concluding until May 28. For Championship sides who did not compete in the play-offs, their campaign ended nearly three weeks earlier, on May 8.
Maresca will not have many players to work with when he does take his first session, with only the non-internationals due back on July 3. As things stand, that covers only 10 senior outfield players: James Justin, Ricardo Pereira, Jannik Vestergaard, Hamza Choudhury, Boubakary Soumare, Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, Dennis Praet, Marc Albrighton, Harvey Barnes, and Jamie Vardy.
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Justin has already spent time at Seagrave this summer, working on his fitness and to shake off any rustiness following his Achilles tear. He has not played a competitive game since last November.
But there will be plenty of development squad players for Maresca to work with and take a closer look at on day one. Players from the Under-21s are scheduled to go back into Seagrave the week before the senior players, and so will have a chance to build their fitness before they will look to make a good first impression with the new manager.
The majority of City’s internationals will not be expected back until the middle of July, around the time the club play their first public pre-season friendly, away at Northampton on July 15. The majority of the players will be back with the team before the trip to Asia, with Thailand the first stop. City play Spurs in Bangkok on July 23, and then travel to Singapore to take on Liverpool on July 30.
Last to come back will likely be Luke Thomas, whose international break is only just beginning. He is part of the England Under-21s squad whose European Championships campaign begins on Thursday, with their first group-stage match, against Czech Republic. If the Young Lions make it all the way to the final, he will be playing until July 8.
