Enzo Maresca tells Leicester City and Ruud van Nistelrooy what to do with 'top player'

Enzo Maresca has offered a reminder of how to get the best out of Ricardo Pereira as the Leicester City full-back strives for his first start in five months this weekend. Ricardo has come on as a substitute in three of City’s last four matches and he’s been one of the best performers in each game, making the team look a greater threat in attack on each occasion. It has shown City what they missed while the Portuguese was out with a serious hamstring injury suffered in November.

In his outings, Ricardo has often played as he did last season, inverting from the full-back role into midfield. Speaking last week about Reece James, former City manager Maresca said he is looking to use the Chelsea captain in the same way he used Ricardo, citing the pair’s fitness concerns. He believes playing full-backs in an inverted role will mean they suffer fewer injury issues.



Last season, Ricardo played more minutes than he did in the three previous campaigns combined. Maresca said: “In terms of data, you can see that when a full-back plays in the way they used to play, up and down, they (do that) much, much, much more (often) than to go inside, covering a (bigger) distance, for the amount of times they go up and down. “So for sure that way that we are using James, in some games, can help him.

“Last year at Leicester we had Ricardo Pereira, that he potentially could be a top player for a top team, but because of his injuries...

Last year with us he played all the games, we changed a little bit and that works quite well. “With James, it's working quite well. But I said already many times, Reece with us is playing right full-back, left full-back, midfielder, different positions.

“So we are happy and hopefully the way we are using Reece is helping him to be fit.” Having built his fitness back up, Ricardo may now be a contender to start when City head to Brighton this weekend. If that is the case and Ruud van Nistelrooy wants to use him in an inverted role, it will mean a change in formation.

The 5-2-1-2 system used in the past four games has so far not generated results, with City’s losing streak and goalless streak extending to eight matches..