A change of manager wipes the slate clean and gives every player a fresh chance to become a key part of the starting line-up.
While that sounds positive for a squad, it can also see established players lose their spots. The new manager won’t have favourites, and may also try to cut ties with the old regime.
With that in mind, we’ve picked out four Leicester City players whose fortunes have, so far, taken a turn for the worse under Ruud van Nistelrooy. It’s only been one week and two games, so nothing is set in stone, but here are the players who look to have work to do to be at the forefront of the new manager’s mind.
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Wout Faes
For 45 league games in a row, a run of 13 months, Faes was in the City starting line-up. Van Nistelrooy comes in and the Belgian is immediately relegated to the bench. A poor performance at Brentford, when the Dutchman was on a watching brief, can’t have helped.
Faes has been brought on in each of van Nistelrooy’s two matches and so there are clearly attributes there that the new manager values, but it seems he’s no longer undroppable. A very good defender at his best, City will hope that a significant challenge to his starting spot will spark an upturn in his form.
Caleb Okoli
With Conor Coady and Jannik Vestergaard starting and Faes used from the bench, Okoli is yet to play a minute under the new manager. There’s work for the £15 summer signing to do.
What does work in his favour is that, even if he is fourth-choice centre-back right now, he is also the least experienced. More senior players are often called upon in times of trouble, so Okoli shouldn’t take his absence as a slight on his quality. He’s 23 and some way off his peak, especially as a central defender, so there’s plenty of time and room for him to grow.
Harry Winks
It’s never good to be injured when a new manager arrives. It gives others the chance to stake a claim while you’re still on the treatment table. That’s been the case for Winks.
But it’s not just that Wilfred Ndidi and Boubakary Soumare have been able to play two matches together and told they had a “hell of a game” by the boss against West Ham, but it seems van Nistelrooy’s preference, at least for now, is for more physical midfielders in front of his back four. That’s not Winks’ game.
But the manager has also said he will change things in the midfield depending on the opponent. It just may be difficult to do that if the likes of Soumare and Ndidi keep performing.
Odsonne Edouard
It was a struggle for Edouard to get game-time even before van Nistelrooy came in. But now, with Patson Daka fit and with the manager previously trying to sign him, the loanee has been pushed even further down the pecking order.
At the weekend, when Ricardo Pereira, Winks, Abdul Fatawu and Facundo Buonanotte were all unavailable, Edouard still didn’t get on the bench. Unless there’s a bout of injuries, it’s difficult to see him getting many opportunities at the moment.
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