Jannik Vestergaard’s recent absence from the Leicester City squad is not weighing heavily on the Danish defender, he has said, despite his omission coming out of the blue.
Vestergaard had been in Ruud van Nistelrooy’s matchday squad, usually as a starter, for 14 Premier League games in a row but was left out completely for City's defeats to Chelsea and Manchester United this month.
That’s despite van Nistelrooy changing to a back-five formation that Vestergaard knows well from his international career.
Conor Coady has been at the heart of the defence with Wout Faes and Luke Thomas either side of him, and with Caleb Okoli as the back-up on the bench.
While City were more defensively solid against Chelsea, they again had problems against United, and their run without a clean sheet now stands at 25 matches.
Vestergaard, speaking while on Denmark duty, did not express concern over his personal situation at City.
He said: “We are in a difficult period at Leicester, where we have not performed, and I have not been in the last two games. I don't take it too seriously.”
Two games out did not affect Vestergaard’s performance in his first outing of the international break, the centre-back one of Denmark’s star men as they defeated Portugal 1-0 in the Nations League quarter-final first leg.
Vestergaard described it as the best performance by Denmark during his time in the national team, bearing in mind the quality of the opponent, but it was not enough to see them through to the semi-finals.
In the second leg on Sunday evening, Denmark lost 3-2 in the 90 minutes for a 3-3 aggregate draw, former City transfer target Francisco Trincao scoring four minutes from full-time to take the game to extra-time.
Trincao scored again just seconds into the extra 30 minutes, with Portugal putting a fifth past Kasper Schmeichel late on, the former City captain having saved a Cristiano Ronaldo penalty in normal time.
Vestergaard played 120 minutes in the game, and was thrown up front for the final stages as Denmark looked for a comeback.
City left-back Victor Kristiansen, who had initially been left out of the squad but was called up for the second leg after Joakim Maehle dropped out, played the final 20 minutes of normal time plus the 30 minutes of extra-time.
Mads Hermansen's wait for a first senior Denmark cap goes on. He's been understudy to Schmeichel for 26 matches now.
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