Leicester City appear to be slipping meekly back into the Championship.
After 11 defeats from 12 Premier League games in which they scored only four times, Ruud van Nistelrooy’s side are offering few signs of a fightback.
After another shockingly apathetic performance at West Ham United on Thursday night, the travelling Leicester fans must have looked at the dark skyline as they trudged out of the London Stadium and thought that there is little light at the end of the tunnel.
There may certainly seem to be little future for this Leicester team — the majority of whom will have been involved in two relegations in three seasons — but there is some hope if fans look towards the young players that have emerged in recent years.
Should Leicester head back to the Championship, their homegrown players may have a big role to play — especially if, as expected, the EFL impose sanctions for suspected profit and sustainability rule breaches. A business plan would impose a budget and force them to sell, although that is probably already part of Leicester’s strategy.
Whoever takes charge next season — and it remains to be seen whether Van Nistelrooy will remain if Leicester are relegated — they face the task of rebuilding the squad into one that is not only fit to challenge for promotion but also to be equipped to put up more of a fight to stay in the Premier League if successful.
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Leicester’s academy has always been productive. A run of 288 consecutive games with a homegrown player in the squad only came to an end earlier this season when they faced Bournemouth at home, and there have been assets whose sales have been reinvested, such as Ben Chilwell and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, in recent seasons.
Assistant first-team coach Andy King may be the most famous homegrown talent of them all, having won League One, Championship and Premier League titles with Leicester after emerging from the academy, but with Hamza Choudhury out on loan at Sheffield United, the number of academy graduates in the first-team team squad has been reduced to just three: Luke Thomas, Kasey McAteer and Jakub Stolarczyk.
All three could have more prominent roles to play next season if there is a squad clearout — certainly Stolarczyk, who could become the No 1 goalkeeper if Mads Hermansen, the club’s most saleable asset, leaves.
But there are others pushing from behind to break through. Centre-back Ben Nelson was enjoying his first loan in the Championship with Oxford United until injury cut that experience short. The England Under-20 international, who turns 21 next month, was highly rated by Enzo Maresca last season and has made nine first-team appearances. He could play a prominent role.
Ben Nelson, pictured in pre-season action last July, is on loan at Oxford United (Dan Istitene/Getty Images)
Right-winger Silko Thomas has yet to make his Leicester debut but the 20-year-old has made 31 appearances for Wigan Athletic in League One this season, starting 20 league games.
Another winger, Wanya Marcal, who also broke through into the Leicester first team last season under Maresca, has returned from a less productive loan spell at De Graafschap in the second tier of Dutch football, having made just four appearances.
Likewise, midfielder Sammy Braybrooke returned from his loan at Dundee having featured just eight times, but is highly regarded in the England pathway structure, having played at under-18, under-19 and under-20 level. The 20-year-old is now back playing with Leicester’s under-21 squad.
There are several others in that squad that are also starting to attract attention, chiefly wingers Jeremy Monga and Jake Evans.
Monga is one of the hottest prospects to come out of the academy for many years. The 15-year-old is being tracked by a host of other clubs, whose scouts regularly attend Leicester Under-21 games at Seagrave.
When asked whether he knew about Monga earlier this season, Van Nistelrooy said: “The whole world knows about him.” He then named him on the substitutes’ bench for last month’s FA Cup tie against Manchester United at Old Trafford, but didn’t bring him on.
Had he been brought on, Monga, who comes from Coventry and has been in Leicester’s academy since the under-nines, would have become the club’s second-youngest debutant by just nine days after Ashley Chambers in 2005.
Evans has also been training with the first team regularly this season and while the 16-year-old wasn’t included on the bench at Old Trafford, he has had a very productive season in the under-21s, scoring nine goals in 11 games, including a hat-trick in a 6-3 win away at Newcastle United.
Sixteen-year-old Louis Page is another who is starting to shine in the under-18s and under-21s. The central midfielder has been called into the England Under-17 squad and scored and assisted in a 3-2 win over the Netherlands earlier this month. He has recently had a run in the Leicester side in Premier League 2, providing two assists in the win at Newcastle and scoring in the 5-1 demolition of Norwich City.
Attacking midfielder Logan Briggs, aged 19, has also been in excellent form recently, scoring both goals in a 2-1 win over Derby County last Monday, while 20-year-old Henry Cartwright has been around the first team this season and was an unused substitute under Van Nistelrooy for the 4-0 Premier League defeat at Newcastle.
These may be prospects for further down the road but a player who seems ready to step up to the first team regularly next season, especially if relegation is confirmed, is attacking midfielder Will Alves, who is currently on loan at Cardiff City.
Alves has been around the first-team squad at Leicester since Brendan Rodgers was manager. The 19-year-old, who has been at Leicester since he was nine, made his debut as a 16-year-old as a substitute in a FA Cup victory over Watford in January 2022, catching the eye with his technical ability but threatened to be dragged straight back off the pitch by Rodgers unless he had fewer touches and passed more.
Will Alves, left, is on loan at Cardiff City (Bryn Lennon/Getty Images)
He may have broken through earlier but ruptured his ACL in a bad challenge by a Wolverhampton Wanderers player in a FA Youth Cup tie the following December and was out of action for nearly a year, but made his Premier League debut as a substitute at Manchester City in December before heading to Cardiff, who are trying to stay in the Championship.
So far, Alves has made just four appearances for the Welsh side — he missed Tuesday’s 1-0 win over Hull City with a knee injury and wasn’t in the matchday squad for Friday’s FA Cup fifth-round loss at Aston Villa — but he has certainly demonstrated his potential to regular watchers of the Bluebirds.
“You’re always wary when a fanbase waxes lyrical about young prospects and often they fail to live up to the hype,” says Glen Williams, Cardiff City correspondent for WalesOnline. “But the excitement from Leicester fans seems to be justified.
“He’s clearly a very confident and talented lad, with bags of potential. His speed and desire to run at people were perhaps expected, but his close control with the ball has been an aspect of his game which has impressed me. He has stood up to the physicality of Championship defenders well.
“It’s still early days in the context of his Cardiff career and his career as a whole, of course, but Leicester do seem to have a real talent on their hands.”
Leicester will still need to supplement and support their emerging talents with plenty of reliable experience to them as they break through at different stages, but at least the potential of some of the academy graduates offers some hope of better days to come.
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(Top photos: Will Alves, left, and Ben Nelson; Getty Images)
