Steve Cooper gave an update on the fitness of Jamie Vardy, Conor Coady, and Patson Daka, as well as his comments on City’s performance in their 3-0 loss to Lens. Jamie Vardy and Conor Coady will miss Leicester City’s Premier League opener against Tottenham, in a major blow to manager Steve Cooper. Vardy has been sidelined since suffering a knock in the first preseason game against Villarreal and has yet to return to training. Cooper announced after City’s final friendly of the summer, a disappointing 3-0 loss to Lens, that he would not be in contention to face Tottenham.
Coady, meanwhile, limped out of the open training session at the King Power Stadium on Tuesday and has been ruled out for one month. The former England international captained City in a few pre-season games and appeared to be a crucial figure for Cooper. Patson Daka was replaced in the first half of the defeat to Lens after the home team’s defender Kevin Danso landed on the Zambian’s leg. He departed the Stade Bollaert-Delelis wearing a protective boot ahead of an inspection, and he will most likely miss next Monday’s start as well.
In that instance, Tom Cannon is City’s only senior striker. Cooper, however, elected not to bring on Cannon as a direct replacement for Daka, instead starting Stephy Mavididi up front until bringing on the Republic of Ireland international later in the game. “We’ll see how Patson is,” Cooper told BBC Radio Leicester following the 3-0 defeat. “He’s wearing a boot at the moment. Conor is going to be out for at least a month. “Vards is still rehabilitating. He has yet to rejoin the team, and I believe it will be some time before he does. So we’re planning without those guys right now.”
Cooper is dealing with a variety of issues ahead of the Tottenham game, including injuries. City were second-best throughout their defeat to Lens on Saturday, with the French side dominating possession and forcing City into repeated turnovers. Cooper did not attempt to sugarcoat the display. The only good he saw was that it provided his players an idea of how difficult the Premier League would be.
“It was a tough day,” Cooper admitted. “It was just the challenge we needed. In terms of performance, our possession game was completely ineffective. There was no doubt about that. The game demanded a considerably more intense in-possession experience than we provided. “They didn’t let us play calmly. However, in that scenario, you must be able to play quickly and identify open areas. This fell short.
“We did far too much defending in the first half. But, having said that, we were fine defensively. There are some decent takeaways from there. It was just a pretty poor start to the second half that cost us the game. There were some aspects of that that I didn’t enjoy.
“The only positive aspect of the game, as I just told the players, is that next week’s game against Tottenham will be considerably tougher. One hundred percent. With that in mind, we need to make significant improvements. “I just pushed everybody to use today as a reference point and say, ‘I’m glad that happened.’ Because we’ve prepared for what the season may bring. It’s not a positive perspective, but it poses a challenge to the lads. “We will keep going. For the guys that will be working with us this year, we want to look back on today and be half-glad that it happened, because we have to learn from it.”
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