Justin's Excitement As Pre-Season Plans Gather Pace

- Leicester City will face Derby County and Preston North End in friendlies on Saturday
- Manager Brendan Rodgers takes a squad to Preston, while assistant Chris Davies goes to Pride Park
- Defender James Justin, who will be at Deepdale, has provided an update on his summer progress
- He says positive work has already been done to prepare City for the challenges to come

Two different squads will contest fixtures against Derby County (1pm kick-off) and Preston North End (3pm kick-off) on Saturday. While Brendan Rodgers will be in charge of the side in Lancashire, it'll be assistant manager Chris Davies who oversees the contingent at Pride Park.

Justin, who earlier this summer achieved the childhood dream of making his debut for the England national team, will be in Preston on Saturday. After featuring for the Foxes against OH Leuven and Hull City, the former Luton Town full-back is excited to continue the summer games programme.

"It’s been really good," the 24-year-old told LCFC TV. "Tough, but nice to get back to it. We’re finding our groove in the games now so we’ll look to keep pushing before the season. The heat in Leuven was tough to play with and the pitch was quite dry.

"They were a step ahead of us in pre-season and it was a really tough game against them. It was a good fitness exercise for us and then the game against Hull was a good workout for us ahead of this weekend. It’s been good to get back into things."

Justin admits he has spoken to goalkeeper Daniel Iversen, who has enjoyed successful loan spells at Preston over recent seasons, to get to know Ryan Lowe's Lilywhites even more.

"It's a good stage for us to push on and try and get 90 minutes into peoples’ legs where we can really," he added. "Hopefully we’ll bring back two positive results and obviously build that base of fitness before next week and the first game of the season.

"I’ve spoken to Dan a little bit this morning about what they’re about and stuff. It seems we’re in for a tough game and hopefully we can give ourselves a good showing up there and build on our fitness and our connections. That’ll be the main thing in the game.

"They’ll be bang at it and will probably get their 90 minutes in as well. It’ll be good for them, playing against a Premier League side, so I’m sure it’ll be a battle and it’ll be fun."

Justin was one of many players to enjoy a week-long training camp in Évian-les-Bains, France earlier this month. As well as intense football drills, the squad also worked on the group mentality during their stay on Lake Geneva and the England defender hopes it can pay off in 2022/23.

"It was really intense and, obviously, I’ve been there before," City's No.2 explained. "I think it was the year that I signed and it hasn’t changed one bit. It was tough but it was really good for us and we bonded well as a team.

"You’re there 24/7. You’re getting up and doing two or three sessions a day and then meetings in the evening about how we can improve as a squad and what we can do to get there.

"It helps to build a base and we haven’t been able to do that because of COVID for the last couple of seasons, but now we’ve nailed it down again. Hopefully it’ll pay dividends during the season. I think it’ll be a good thing for us.

"The last time we were in Évian, probably half the people weren’t there because of various different things like internationals, new signings and stuff. It helps the younger players get a feel for what we expect of them as a team too."

Both fixtures on Saturday - Derby and Preston - will be broadcast live and for free on LCFC TV and YouTube from 12pm.

All times BST.