Ruud van Nistelrooy is off to a flyer after Leicester’s 3-1 win over West Ham but the scoreline told a very different story to the stats in that game and if he’s to keep the Foxes in the Premier League we suspect January moves may well be required.
He remains in the Manchester United good books despite his dismissal after a productive interim spell and that relationship with the bosses along with his very recent work with the players makes them a prime raiding target.
Here are six players we reckon he should be plumping for.
Victor Lindelof
He’s Manchester United’s third longest-serving player behind Luke Shaw and Marcus Rashford having been at the club for seven-and-a-half entirely forgettable years. Never the best nor the worst centre-back in that time, there’s not much more to say about Lindelof’s Manchester United career other than that (for now at least) we acknowledge that he’s had one. In five years or so we may struggle to even be that glowing in our reverence.
We do actually quite like Lindelof though. If nothing else it takes quite the stomach to remain at Manchester United for that long, and actually, being forgettable is an underrated quality in a centre-back. Sure, the very best are hard to miss, but so are the very worst, and being a consistently average centre-back is absolutely fine for Leicester.
Ethan Wheatley
The understandably giddy Leicester fans may well baulk at the inclusion of a striker on this list after both Jamie Vardy and Patson Saka scored in Ruud’s first game in charge, but Wheatley would offer something very different as a target man for the Foxes.
He’s more of a penalty box sniffer than anything else, something Van Nistelrooy will be able to nurture, and he may as well earn experience elsewhere in the second half of the season with his path to the United first team blocked by Rasmus Hojlund, Joshua Zirkzee and Marcus Rashford, all of whom appear to have found their feet quickly under Ruben Amorim.
Harry Maguire
He’s not a guy short of confidence in his own ability having turned transfers down to fight what looked a losing battle for his place in the Manchester United team under Erik ten Hag. He featured far more than anyone thought he would having lost the captaincy, largely due to injuries to his competition, but also because he was playing some decent football.
But while he will probably fancy his chances again of regaining his spot on his return from injury as one of Amorim’s three centre-backs, amid Leny Yoro’s introduction, Matthijs de Ligt and Lisandro Martinez’s improvement and reports of defensive additions being high on a list of transfer priorities, we can’t see a fulfilling future for Maguire at Old Trafford.
A return to Leicester wouldn’t even have been on his radar, with middling Premier League sides a more reasonable landing spot, but Van Nistelrooy increases the allure of the Foxes, like all heroes of the Barclays era turned coaches.
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Toby Collyer
Did nothing wrong having replaced the hapless Casemiro at half-time in United’s 3-0 defeat to Liverpool in September but he’s still very much below the Brazilian, Kobbie Mainoo, Manuel Ugarte and Christian Eriksen in the midfield pecking order, while Ruben Amorim’s new system also allows Bruno Fernandes or Mason Mount to take up one of those roles. Collyer’s not going to play if he stays.
Erik ten Hag was supposedly impressed by his ‘freakish running stats’ in training, as most managers would be in this energy-obsessed era of Premier League football, and while Van Nistelrooy already has two such Willing Runners in Harry Winks and Oliver Skipp, neither has done anything of great note to suggest gains can’t be made in the transfer market in that position.
As is the case with Wheatley, United would presumably be very pleased to send Collyer out on loan.
Christian Eriksen
“It was a time of lots of joy and a lot of freedom,” Christian Eriksen said, reflecting on Van Nistelrooy’s interim spell at United as though he was explaining the Swinging Sixties to his grandchildren.
He only made two brief cameos from the bench during Van Nistelrooy’s four-game stint, with the caretaker boss valuing steel over guile in those deeper midfield positions. But Eriksen could be used as the furthest forward of a midfield three at Leicester, as he did to such great effect at Tottenham and in his brief stint at Brentford, before he was burdened with defensive responsibility he has neither the energy nor we suspect the heart (no pun intended) to engage in.
Also looks like he wouldn’t cost Leicester a dime.
Antony
We’re fully in favour of Antony moving to Leicester more in the hope of it satisfying our sadism than anything else. His place in the team would be far from assured up against Facundo Buonanotte, Abdul Fatawu and Stephy Mavididi in those spots behind Jamie Vardy, and the thought of his glum face peering out from the King Power bench is a hugely attractive proposition.