Leicester City gains ground on Bristol City as Leeds United must wait for injuries and suffer an Ipswich blow. The latest Leicester City news as the Championship resumes over the Easter Weekend with City, Leeds and Ipswich all facing crucial matches in the race to finish in the top two at the end of the season.
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It could be a crucial few day in the race for both automatic promotion and the Championship title as domestic football returns for Leicester City and their rivals.
City lost their place at the top of the league before the international break, with Leeds taking the place on goal difference. City do, however, now have a game in hand over their rivals – something that could come in very handy.
Ipswich travel to Blackburn Rover in the 5.30pm kick-off. Leeds then round off the day at 8pm when they travel to Vicarage Road to take on Watford. Ahead of what could be a season-defining few days, we’ve taken a look at how all three squads are looking in terms of injuries. The latest updates from the managers’ press conferences this week are below.
Leicester City
Enzo Maresca has confirmed that Jamie Vardy will be back for the trip to Ashton Gate, which is a big boost to the team. The striker missed the FA Cup quarter-final vs Chelsea but was bang in form ahead of that game, scoring a brace against Hull City in the last Championship outing.
In another boost, it has also been confirmed that Ricardo Pereira and Dennis Praet could make the squad for the game against Bristol City. Ricardo has not been available since the loss against Leeds last month. Maresca did confirm that Kasey McAteer, Tom Cannon, and Ben Nelson will miss the game, while Callum Doyle is suspended after his red card at Stamford Bridge.
“Kasey is still out. Jamie’s back. Ricky could be involved in the squad tomorrow. Dennis could be involved in the squad tomorrow,” Maresca said in his pre-match press conference. “The only one 100 percent fit is Jamie. Then Ben Nelson is injured from the national team and Tom Cannon got an injury during the international break.
“The problem with Kasey is the same as last time, so we need to be careful with him so that he can come back and not get an injury again. Hopefully, it can be soon. “It’s a short injury (for Cannon). For sure, he’s out for Bristol City and Norwich, but he could be back for Birmingham. (For Nelson), it could be a short injury.”
Leeds United
For Leeds, it’s about playing a waiting game with the team handed a few injury concerns over the international break. Forward Georginio Rutter underwent minor surgery over the break and is facing a race against time to return, although it seems he is winning that race.
“He is on the road back, he was already involved in parts of team training,” Leeds boss Daniel Farke said on Wednesday. “That was definitely a positive thing. It was beneficial for him to have that surgery. He was involved in bits and parts of the training session today.
“He is on a good path. There are still 48 hours and I’m carefully optimistic he will be available for the squad and some minutes.”
There are, however, doubts over Conor Roberts, Wilfried Gnonto, and Ilia Gruev who all picked up problems while on international duty. All three will be assessed ahead of the game against Watford along with Junior Fripo who has a tight turnaround after returning from Peru.
It has also been confirmed that defender Pascal Struijk will miss the rest of the season after undergoing surgery. He will join Stuart Dallas on the sidelines.
Ipswich Town
Ipswich boss Kieran McKenna has confirmed a blow for the Tractor Boys, with influential winger Wes Burns suffering a ‘not short term’ injury. The Welshman was forced off the pitch in the first half of the 6-0 win over Sheffield Wednesday before the international break.
“We’re OK. From the last game, we obviously lost Wes. He’s seen the specialist now. As we suspected, it’s certainly not a short-term injury to his hamstring, but no surgery required and he’s doing OK,” Kieran McKenna said in his pre-match press conference on Wednesday. “So we’ll have it rescanned in a week or so and we’ll know a lot more than about how long the recovery’s going to be.”
“It’s a challenging time in terms of the international week,” McKenna added. “We’ve had Cameron [Burgess] playing on the other side of the world [in Australia], we’ve had Jeremy [Sarmiento] playing in New York, we’ve had the Welsh boys going through an emotional 120 minutes last night, in Kieffer [Moore]’s case, so that’s a challenge.
“We had the whole group back in today apart from Cameron, he’ll return to the training ground tomorrow, so we’ll make the best of the cards that are in front of us and prepare as well as we can for the game and get the whole group back together and make sure we’re going into Friday in a really good place.”
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