Maddison's Fitness To Be Assessed For Arsenal Test

- Brendan Rodgers says James Maddison will be assessed this week
- Leicester City entertain Arsenal in the Premier League on Saturday (3pm GMT kick-off)
- Maddison has a knee issue which will be monitored by the Club's medical staff

The Foxes welcome the Premier League leaders to Filbert Way on Saturday hoping to get back to winning ways after a four-game unbeaten run was ended at Manchester United last weekend.

Maddison played in that reverse at Old Trafford, but a knee issue means he will be monitored in training later this week. The England midfielder had scored in successive wins over Aston Villa and Tottenham Hotspur earlier in February.

"We’re starting to get a lot of players back," manager Brendan Rodgers told the media on Thursday. "We have to see how James Maddison is though. He’s still nursing a knee issue, so we’ll have to assess that tomorrow after training."

Youri Tielemans, on the other hand, has been an option from the bench in previous games and Rodgers credited the Belgium international's efforts in training. The Foxes manager also provided an update on Ryan Bertrand (knee).

"[Tielemans] has trained very, very well," the Northern Irishman added. "He’s a very good option for us. [Bertrand is] back in training with the squad. He will still be a bit off it in terms of match fitness and whatnot but he’ll be available to train."

There's no fixed timeline on the recovery of Club captain Jonny Evans (thigh), though.

"We'll see where he's at tomorrow," Rodgers said. "He hasn't been with the group this week. We're hoping he can join at some point next week, but that's as detailed as that can be at the moment."

City's injury issues are as light as they have been in a long while and the manager explained how this can benefit the Club's ambitions for the remainder of the 2022/23 campaign.

"It's great to have those possibilities in games," he explained. "Luke Thomas has been brilliant for me in my time here and he wasn't on the bench last week.

"He knows how important he is, but it raises the level of training and competition with people fighting to play.

"It's now about balancing getting game time to get players up to speed. Having the availability of players has been great. It's a big advantage to have it. It gives you flexibility in games.

"In the modern game, the average number of changes within games in terms of systems and everything else is virtually two per game. At the World Cup, it was just over three.

"It tells you, in order to do that, you need flexibility to bring players off the bench.

"That opportunity to change the game by having players available that can come in and change the dynamics of it is very important. It should give me really good problems to have as a manager."