Ricardo only player left on injury list

LEICESTER City’s injury list is finally clearing up with just one player remaining on the sidelines as the new year approaches, writes Jordan Blackwell.

Two players returned to the fold in Sunday’s 2-0 victory at Spurs, Timothy Castagne playing an hour before being replaced by Daniel Amartey, with the duo last playing in October having suffered hamstring injuries.

Caglar Soyuncu will make his return next week, in either the Boxing Day clash with Manchester United or the trip to Crystal Palace two days later, while it is hoped Jamie Vardy will overcome his hip issue, a long-standing problem, that flared up in the final few minutes at Tottenham.

That leaves just Ricardo Pereira as the sole unavailable player in the City squad.

The right-back is recovering from a groin problem he picked up on his comeback from a knee injury earlier this month.

Making his return after eight weeks was no problem for Castagne, said manager Brendan Rodgers, with City planning to ease him in with a 60-minute runout.

“It’s so frustrating because these guys are so good and he was great for us and you want to keep them on, but it’s a season where we’re trying to manage the squad,” Rodgers said of the Belgian.

“The plan for him was to get an hour, and hopefully he would come through it okay, which he did do.”

Soyuncu has overcome a groin problem and will now play in either of the two festive fixtures, with Rodgers likely to play completely different sides in the two games – as he did last year when City played Liverpool on Boxing Day and then West Ham two days later.

■What do you think of City’s title chances? E-mail your views to: