Vardy, Ndidi, McAteer – Leicester City injury news and return dates

Enzo Maresca gives an update on the fitness of his squad after the midweek trip to Sunderland and ahead of the meeting with Hull, with Vardy missing two days of training.

Jamie Vardy has not trained with the Leicester City squad since the victory over Sunderland, making him a doubt to lead the line at Hull.

Vardy replaced Patson Daka up front for City’s 1-0 win over the Black Cats in which he scored the all-important goal, heading in a rebound from a corner. He played 78 minutes at the Stadium of Light before being substituted, but has not trained since.

He may yet take part in City’s final session before they head to the play-off-chasing Tigers on Saturday afternoon, but his lack of action at Seagrave makes him a doubt to start. As well as Daka, Enzo Maresca has Kelechi Iheanacho and Tom Cannon to choose from.

Aside from Vardy, City also have Kasey McAteer, Ricardo Pereira, and Dennis Praet missing through injury. Jannik Vestergaard returns though, the centre-back available again after a two-match suspension.

“Kasey is still out,” Maresca said at his press conference on Friday afternoon. “The only one is Jamie. After the Sunderland game, he hasn’t trained with us. It’s nothing important. He just needs to rest a little bit. Today, we’ll see if he’s available for the session.

“(For McAteer) it’s the same problem he had in the past (hamstring), this season. A bit less than the previous one. Hopefully he can be back in two, three, four weeks.

“It’s not an injury (for Vardy). It’s a matter to manage him because of his age and he played the other day. He didn’t train with us in the last two days. We’ll see this afternoon.”

Wilfred Ndidi made a surprise injury comeback in Tuesday’s game, playing the final 20 minutes. While he was in the squad, it was not Maresca’s original intention to use the Nigerian, who was making his first appearance in more than two months. He’s now ready to play.

“The other day, Wilf was with us just to be with the team,” Maresca said. “The idea was not to give him any minutes. But because of the situation, because of the game, because Yunus (Akgun) was so tired, and because in this moment we need to win games, he did an unbelievable effort to play 20 minutes. Now he’s ready to play, but we’ll see tomorrow if he’s going to play from the start or if he will be on the bench.”

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