December 30, (THEWILL) – Leicester’s Jamie Vardy suffered a hamstring injury during the Foxes’ 1-0 victory over Liverpool on Tuesday and manager Brendan Rodgers has announced that the English striker might be out for up to a month.
Vardy sustained the injury in the second half, but he was obliged to play on to the end since the Foxes had already used all three substitutes.
The injury is the latest in a string of misfortunes for Leicester this season. They were without nine first-team players going into the Liverpool encounter, including both starting centre-backs Caglar Soyuncu and Jonny Evans.
Rodgers was compelled to start Daniel Amartey and Wilfred Ndidi in defence against the high-flying Reds as a result of this. This, along with the fact that the majority of the starting XI had just played for a little over 48 hours, made the triumph nothing short of remarkable.
The positive vibes around the club, however, did not last long, with Rodgers admitting that Vardy was the latest player to suffer an injury.
“Jamie will be out for the weekend and James Maddison [also injured against Liverpool] should be fine,” he told the press. “Could be the next 3-4 weeks [for Vardy].”
Harvey Barnes has returned to training, and Ryan Bertrand is set to return next week, according to Rodgers. James Justin and Wesley Fofana, who have been out with long-term injuries, are also nearing returns.
With Leicester’s roster ravaged by injuries, Rodgers has demanded that the Premier League allow teams to make five substitutions, as is the case in the rest of Europe’s ‘big five’ divisions.
“Yeah, 100%,” Rodgers said, when asked if he would favour the rule change. “I think that, for me, the possibility to do that would really help to change things. Five subs definitely would help.”
He added: “We’ll not get too bogged down on it or use injuries as excuses. We had a great win the other night but now we have to pick it up on Saturday.
“And they will do. They’re great guys. That focus and concentration is very important, particularly in this period. We’ve at least got a couple of days and we’ll do our final preparation for tomorrow. The players who are available will be good enough.”
Jude Obafemi is a versatile senior Correspondent at THEWILL Newspapers, excelling in sourcing, researching, and delivering sports news stories for both print and digital publications.
