Maresca's Pre-Birmingham Squad Considerations

- Leicester City face Birmingham City at St. Andrew's Stadium on Monday (8pm GMT kick-off)
- Jamie Vardy will miss the clash with the Blues, while other players will be assessed
- Marc Albrighton is one of those, alongside Kelechi Iheanacho, Yunus Akgün and Harry Souttar
- Academy players Will Alves and Wanya Marçal have small muscular problems 

The Foxes defeated Millwall 3-2 at King Power Stadium on Wednesday evening and, with the visit to St. Andrew's Stadium being pushed back to Monday, Maresca has extra time to prepare his squad.

The Italian's City side are currently top of the Sky Bet Championship table with 17 wins from their 21 matches so far, ahead of a crucial festive run-in which includes Rotherham United (H), Ipswich Town (A) and Cardiff City (A).

Leicester will have four full days to ensure all recuperation and preparation is complete ahead of Monday's meeting with Birmingham, a welcome luxury in an otherwise congested fixture schedule this month.

Speaking after Millwall, the Manager confirmed that Jamie Vardy will miss the trip to Birmingham, and that Marc Albrighton is being assessed, while also suggesting Kelechi Iheanacho, Yunus Akgün and Harry Souttar could be in contention.

"Jamie's [injury] was in training," Maresca has since confirmed. "Unfortunately, for Monday, it’s impossible, but we’ll see. The good thing, for the next game, is that we have four days. In this moment, it’s something very strange.

"We played Wednesday and we’re going to play on Monday. [On Thursday], we had a session, Friday we’re off, and then Saturday and Sunday, we’ll prepare the game. Fortunately, having four days, they will have time to recover for Monday."

James Justin was used from the bench in the win over Millwall, part of the management of the England international's fitness, with Conor Coady coming into the XI. The former Everton man was himself withdrawn, due to him picking up a caution.

"With the players (like Justin) who struggled in the last one or two years with injuries, we try to give them some rest," Maresca explained. "We changed Conor was because he was with a yellow card and, probably in that moment, the only way to complicate our game was one more yellow card – [leaving us] with 10. We decided to change him, but he was doing very well."

Dennis Praet, on the other hand, has recently returned from an injury complaint of his own to make a number of substitute appearances and Maresca says the Belgium international will be involved over the coming weeks.

"Probably, with Kiernan [Dewsbury-Hall] now, they’re the two guys that move very good in the pocket, in the small spaces," he added. "Wilfred [Ndidi], [on Wednesday], he gave a good pass for Pat (Patson Daka). [Praet] is going to get his chances for sure because of the amount of games."

Academy forward Tawanda Maswanhise is another player to have been named on the bench over the past two weeks, with Maresca confirming small issues for Will Alves and Wanya Marçal limiting their opportunities. 

"[Maswanhise is] a young player with a good profile, but also we have unfortunately Will Alves with a muscular problem," he said. "It’s just a small problem which requires two-three weeks. We have Wanya with a muscular problem as well. Otherwise I think they would be with us."