Football Season Guide

Leicester are preparing for life after Mahrez, with their best player for the past few campaigns finally making his dream move to Man City this summer. Coach Puel knew about this transfer ever since January when he blocked it and the French specialist had plenty of time to think about the tactics and the shape Leicester will be using after the Mahrez-era. This pre-season the Foxes trusted 4-2-3-1 much more often, in recent years they have been playing predominantly 4-4-2 and 4-4-1-1, but with many players not involved in the friendlies due to their World Cup commitments it is not certain that this will be the main formation once they are all back. Puel is not done strengthening the squad, but he already made four decent new signings, with at least two of them likely to be regular starters. Both the right-back Pereira and centre-back Evans will be part of the new main defensive line. Also Chilwell seems to be preparing for his first season as regular left-back after two years of very good progression. Two new centre-backs also joined the Foxes on deadline day and both Soyuncu and Benkovic will be used regularly as the season progresses. Leicester also hope to get more from Adrien Silva and Iheanacho, the former wasn’t eligible to play until January last year, while Iheanacho had a difficult first season at the club and was not used much. The same can be said about Mendy, who returned from a loan that was designed to build his fitness after the long injury absence. Leicester seem to have enough depth in every area of the pitch to be feeling confident and despite the fact that once more a lot will depend on how effective Vardy is up front Puel is known for focusing on his defence and the fact that he brought in two new regular starters for the back four suggests that the Foxes will try to be much harder to score against this season.