Enzo Maresca makes admission over six Leicester City players as pair chase fitness

The Leicester City manager plans to share minutes between his six wide players, with Abdul Fatawu and Yunus Akgun still needing to adjust to the tempo of Championship football

Having six wingers for two spots is “not easy” to manage, Enzo Maresca has admitted, with the Leicester City boss set to share out the minutes among his wide-men this season.

Across City’s eight games in all competitions, Kasey McAteer, Stephy Mavididi, Wanya Marcal, Marc Albrighton, and Yunus Akgun have all started at least once, while Abdul Fatawu has featured as a substitute in the past two games. To keep them all involved, Maresca has said he will rotate.

So far, McAteer and Mavididi have started most often, the pair both scoring on Friday night at Southampton, but the competition from Yunus and Fatawu will grow when they have adjusted to life in England. At the moment, they are still getting to grips with the tempo of Championship football.

“It’s not easy,” Maresca said on managing his wingers. “Probably now Wanya is the guy getting less minutes. He’s playing with the Under-21s but it’s not because he does bad with us.

“We have many wingers, so we try to share minutes. Hopefully we don’t get any injuries, but in the moment we do have injuries, it’s good to have choices and to use them.

“The only thing I can say is that probably Stephy, Yunus, and Abdul, all of them they arrive here not 100 per cent fit. Yunus arrived here from a different country with a different tempo. He himself, after three or four days, said here it is a completely different tempo to Turkey.

“Abdul, exactly the same. He played 90 minutes for the last time in June. You can see he has something good, against Hull City he hit the post. The other day he lost some balls but you can see that in one-v-ones he is very dangerous. He needs step by step to get better. Hopefully soon we will have all of them 100 per cent, and we can decide.”

As Maresca mentioned, Marcal represented City’s Under-21s on Friday night as they played Burnley at Seagrave while the first team were in Southampton. But Albrighton also looks to be towards the bottom of the pecking order, with the title-winning winger not even included on the bench for the past two matches.