Lascelles has picked up an injury just a couple of weeks into his Leicester City career and could miss three games, leaving the club short of centre-back options
Jamaal Lascelles and Abdul Fatawu during Leicester City’s defeat at Birmingham(Image: Pro Sports Images)
Jamaal Lascelles could miss three Championship matches after picking up an injury early into his Leicester City career.
Lascelles, City’s sole permanent signing of their four deadline-day recruits, missed the FA Cup loss at Southampton and will be out for potentially a couple of weeks.
That could see him miss City’s next three Championship games over the remainder of this month, away at Stoke and Middlesbrough, and then at home to Norwich.
Lascelles made his first senior start in 23 months when he played for City at Birmingham last weekend, and then he made a substitute appearance in the league defeat to Southampton in midweek.
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His injury, plus those to Jannik Vestergaard and Harry Souttar, means Caleb Okoli and Ben Nelson will be City’s starting centre-back pairing for the next few games, with Bade Aluko likely the back-up.
“Jama picked up something at the back end of the week,” interim boss Andy King said on Saturday. “It’s only a small issue so he’ll be out for a week or two.
“It’s something small which you sometimes get when you haven’t played for a long time and then play a couple of games in a week.
“It’s a shame for us because he had a big impact at Birmingham. We tried to rest him a little on Tuesday to get him through this first couple of weeks, but that hasn’t managed to happen.”
Abdul Fatawu was the other surprise absence from the squad at St Mary’s, the winger left out because of a “grumble” in his knee.
Precautions were taken because of his ACL tear last season and Fatawu was left out at St Mary’s. But there’s no indication that he will miss the game at Stoke.
“Abdul is just us being careful because of when he did his cruciate last year,” King said. “He missed a lot of football. He’s been such an important player for us, so when he gets a grumble around his knee, we have to manage that really carefully.
“Even before today, the priority was the league. For someone who scores as many goals and is as important as he is to our team, we need to make sure he’s right.”
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