Leicester City manager regrets not signing Nigeria International Ademola Lookman as the Foxes remain unlikely to make any new signings this summer despite their lack of options contributing to their 2-2 opening-weekend draw with Brentford.
The Foxes are the only side in Europe’s top divisions yet to bring in a single new recruit and unless there are departures over the next few weeks, that will still be the case come September. Without any new faces, and following the injury to Harvey Barnes, Brendan Rodgers felt he had to change formations for the first game of the season against the Bees.
While preparing to play in a 4-3-3 over the course of pre-season, Rodgers changed to a three-at-the-back system on Sunday, tasking his players with adapting to the new shape in one week. But that would have been different if the manager had been able to secure the signings he had wanted.
When Barnes was unavailable last season, Rodgers was able to call upon loanee Ademola Lookman but with Leicester City not in a position to make signings and bring him back, he has joined the club’s former recruitment chief Lee Congerton at Italian side Atalanta in a £15million deal instead.
Asked if City are going to be able to make signings, Rodgers said: “At this moment in time, I would say no. That was the frustration for us, that with Barnesy out, we didn’t have a direct replacement.
"I would have loved to have signed Ademola who was great here last season and got over 10 goals and assists but we weren’t able to do that. Unfortunately that means we then have to look at the squad and the team and try to adapt, and then put them out to be as best organised as they can be.
“For 60-65 minutes we were excellent in the game, in total control of it, played really well, our pressing was good, our football was terrific. It’s a huge credit to the players because we worked on something for five weeks in pre-season, then in the last game here we had a couple of injuries, we didn’t have a replacement (for Barnes) to come in, so we had to change the structure, and I thought the players played it really well.”
Lookman finished with 13 goals and assists across all competitions last season, the winger most notably bagging the winner against Liverpool. He was seen as a player who could provide competition for Barnes on the left side and was one of the five or six transfers Rodgers wanted as part of a healthy shake-up.
Now, with Barnes injured, Marc Albrighton is the only recognised wide-man in the squad. However, Ayoze Perez has spent much of his City career on the right, James Maddison played there for a large portion of last season, and Dennis Praet came on in Barnes' place on the left flank in the win over Sevilla.