2 hours Ago By [email protected] (Jordan Blackwell)
For Will Alves, Steve Cooper and Leicester City, it’s not ideal that the promising attacking midfielder has had to wait until late October for his first club start of the campaign. After proving at the end of last term that his serious knee injury had not damaged his ability nor his potential, he would have wanted to hit the ground running this season. But despite spending all of the summer with the first team and having trained alongside City's seniors as a fully-fledged member of Cooper’s squad in the weeks since, he’s had to be patient.
Cooper was in attendance at Seagrave on Monday night, watching as Alves started for the Under-21s against Nottingham Forest. The manager would really have liked to have been watching him representing an EFL club, having revealed last month his intention to get the 19-year-old out on loan. The right side did not come forward.
With Facundo Buonanotte, Bilal El Khannouss, Jordan Ayew and Bobby De Cordova-Reid all arriving in the summer, Alves has been knocked down the pecking order. City could not rely on such an inexperienced player to be a key man, but so many arrivals has meant he’s not had a sniff of Premier League action. In the Carabao Cup, he got a few minutes against Tranmere and was an unused substitute against Walsall, which has not been enough to satisfy City supporters, nor likely Alves himself.
But having scraped through on penalties at Walsall, there’s another tie next week at Manchester United where he could be included in the squad. Afforded an hour or so on Monday night, it felt like the plan was to get Alves minutes so that he is in better shape to potentially feature at Old Trafford. Because at this point in his development, there’s little to be gained from his appearances in Under-21s matches.
He’s already learned nearly everything he will do from that level and needs to be tested in more difficult circumstances. Maybe because, and because he’s had to sit tight and wait for minutes this season, he was perhaps guilty of trying to do too much on Monday night. Playing as the number 10, he dropped very deep to receive the ball.
His first touch and close control was extremely good as always, but his attempts to wriggle free of the Forest markers were unsuccessful and so he not only made little progress up the pitch, but he kept hold of the ball too long, slowing down City’s attacks. Having dropped deep to try to get in possession, he wasn’t able to threaten in the final third either. Jake Evans and particularly Jeremy Monga were more successful at causing Forest problems, with the latter able to weave into places Alves couldn’t, or was too far back to do so.
Alves cut a frustrated figure. He didn’t make the impact he would like to have made. But an underwhelming display may not change Cooper’s thought process too much.
He will still be in contention to feature in the squad at Man United next week, with the manager’s call likely to be based on the fitness and the fatigue of other players more so than Alves’ performance here. What the manager would really have learned through Alves’ rustiness, if he didn’t know already, is that to get the best out of him and to ensure his development doesn't stall, he needs regular game-time. That’s a task to be sorted in January.
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