Leicester City will get relegated if Van Nistelrooy doesn’t fix issue inherited from Steve Cooper, it’s obvious
Leicester City will get relegated if Van Nistelrooy doesn’t fix issue inherited from Steve Cooper, it’s obvious
The Foxes are on course to be relegated this season and there’s a glaring issue Ruud van Nistlerooy must fix if he’s to avoid that happening.
We are now 24 games into the 2024/25 Premier League season and things really aren’t looking good for Leicester City.
The Foxes have picked up just four wins and amassed a dismally low 17 points from said matches.
Ahead of their meeting with Arsenal, this leaves them 18th in the Premier League table and in a three-horse race with Wolverhampton Wanderers and Ipswich Town to avoid the drop.
If they are to avoid a swift return to the second tier of English football, Ruud van Nistelrooy must fix one issue that also plagued Steve Cooper during his spell at the King Power Stadium.
Leicester City’s biggest weakness under Ruud van Nistelrooy is the same as Steve Cooper’s
Cooper didn’t exactly have a great time in the Midlands, only winning two of his Premier League fixtures.
While not much went right for the manager, it was pretty obvious that James Justin was a weak link for the Foxes.
Leicester fans have hit out at Justin on multiple occasions this season and he continues to disappoint under Ruud.
This was once again evident over the weekend in the 2-1 defeat to Manchester United on Friday evening.
Earlier in the season, Justin was exposed by Man United when they were knocked out of the Carabao Cup, losing 5-2.
The majority of the Red Devils’ goals that night came as a result of poor defending/decision-making from Justin and we once again saw the right-back picked apart by the same player in the FA Cup.
Leicester largely defended well in the first 45 but, much like under Cooper, when Alejandro Garnacho came on, he had a field day against the Englishman.
Ruud van Nistelrooy has solution to James Justin problem
In Cooper’s defence, there was not an awful lot he could have done about Justin as the only backup for him was central midfielder Hamza Choudhury.
However, while Leicester didn’t do a lot in the January market, they did bring in Woyo Coulibably – a natural right-back.
Somewhat bizarrely, when Coulibaly did come on against Man Utd, he replaced Luke Thomas, who was having a decent game at left-back.
After being tormented once more though, it’s obvious Van Nistelrooy now needs to start dropping Justin for Coulibaly at right-back.
Relegation still seems likely, but Justin has been exposed so many times this season Ruud simply has to stop playing him so much if Leicester are to stand any chance of avoiding the drop.
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