Brendan Rodgers has revealed his frustrations over the lack of transfer news coming out of the King Power Stadium as Leicester City begin the 2020-21 Premier League season with a squad that’s much too small, by his estimation.
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After failing to qualify for this season’s UEFA Champions League despite residing in the PL’s top-four until the final week of the season, Leicester have managed to complete very little business in the summer transfer window — which remains open until Oct. 5 — during an abbreviated offseason.
Star left back Ben Chilwell was sold to Chelsea for $65 million; Belgian full back Timothy Castagne ($27 million), who can play on either side, was brought in shortly thereafter; no other transfer business has been done by the club. Rodgers is, predictably, unhappy given he went into the offseason already believing the squad was too small to compete on four fronts in 2020-21 — quotes from Sky Sports:“No, we don’t [have a big enough squad], and that’s something I’ve been pretty clear on. I think that our idea this year was to improve the depth of our squad.
“I’ve always said that I think the players in this last season showed many great moments and for them to improve it’s going to need time, work on the training field.
“But you can’t also get away from having to improve you need quality and that’s something we’ve talked about it and something we hope to give the squad in order to help it.”
With at least six additional games in the Europa League group stage to manage this season, Rodgers is right that his squad will be spread thin in the event of one or two injuries, or even a difficult draw featuring lengthy travel around Europe. Throw in the fact the Foxes won just two of their final nine games following the resumption of last season, and things are beginning to look somewhat bleak in the East Midlands.
