Leicester City return to preseason training

Football is back! Technically it was never gone with two major tournaments filling almost all of the spare time, but we have had to endure months with no Leicester City.

That nightmare is now over and the Foxes are back in preseason training, ahead of their first friendly future against Burton Albion next weekend.

The focus has been understandably drawn to our exciting new summer signings: blistering striker Patson Daka, Ligue 1 champion Boubakary Soumaré and also-a-footballer Ryan Bertrand.

I can’t lie that I’m also excited to see how they look, but there are plenty of other players to be excited about seeing in preseason.

Chief among them, for me, is Harvey Barnes. He was in blistering form before an injury ended his season, and his loss was felt very strongly.

He’s been training fully with the rest of the squad, wearing a shiny new no. 7 shirt, and is said to be back to nearly full fitness.

Hopefully this season we can have more exciting times to come. I’ve been out for a good period of time, so it’ll be nice to get out on the pitch and pick up where I left off hopefully. It’s our first proper full pre-season we’ll have here in Seagrave and it’s a special place. There’s no complaints about any of the facilities. We have all the stuff we need to really kick on - the dangerman is ready to kick on

James Justin is also there in his return from injury, but is perhaps a little way behind and not yet out on the pitch.

They aren’t the only returnees, with all of the on loan Foxes getting another chance to impress. Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall, who was Luton’s player of the year, has the best opportunity to make the squad.

Daniel Iverson, George Hirst, Kamal Sowah and Filip Benkovic are likely to move out on loan again, while Rachid Ghezzal - yes he’s still a Leicester player - is hopefully looking at a permanent deal.

The other group looking to impress are the youth players, who’ve been bumped up to train with the big boys.

Familiar faces include Vontae Daley-Campbell and Tawande Maswanhise, who made their first appearances on the pitch and bench respectively.

It’s an exciting opportunity for development squad player of the year Shane Flynn, joined in defence by 17 year old CB Ben Nelson. Other exciting prospects include midfielder Sammy Braybrook and future USMNT star Chituru Odunze.