Leicester City suffer major injury blow ahead of Sunderland clash with key midfielder ruled out

Leicester City manager Enzo Maresca has joked that he may have to come out of retirement at Sunderland on Tuesday night in the Championship.

The Foxes have been left short of midfield options after injuries to Ricardo Pereira and Dennis Praet as the club eyes an immediate return to the Premier League after last season's relegation.

It has been confirmed that Ricardo will be out until after the international break after suffering a hamstring injury in training before the defeat to QPR, which represents a blow to Maresba with the Portuguese midfielder missing just one game before last weekend's loss.

Praet hobbled off, having gone to ground gripping his hamstring, just 15 minutes into the game against QPR with Leicester City now extremely light on midfielders ahead of Sunderland at the Stadium of Light this week.

“Ricardo is injured and he will be out until after the international break,” the Leiester Citu manager said. “Dennis is injured again. I was a midfielder. Probably on Tuesday (against Sunderland) I can play half an hour, and 45 minutes because in this moment we have just Harry Winks, Kiernan, and Yunus.”

Kasey McAteer also remains injured and defender Jannik Vestergaard is suspended. Wilfred Ndidi is also not yet able to return to Leicester City's squad.

Discussing his striking options and his decision to leave Kelechi Iheanacho out of his squad Maresca added: “Kele, like all players who are sometimes out of the squad, it’s not easy because they are good players and they deserve it. But we had Jamie on the bench and Tom on the bench, so it’s just for that.”