Leicester City hit the jackpot after signing Stephy Mavididi, with the winger playing a major part in the Foxes’ Championship title win.
€80 summer training sessions help player secure club after Leicester City departure
Sometimes as a free agent you have to do everything possible to ensure you can get a new club and for Dennis Praet, that meant €80 training sessions after leaving Leicester City.
Gazet van Antwerpen cover the player today and how he went about keeping himself fit after being released by Leicester this summer.
The midfielder’s five-year spell with the Foxes came to an end in the summer but it took until the beginning of September before he eventually signed for Royal Antwerp.
He had been linked with various moves around Europe, including a return to Italy, where he’d enjoyed spells with Sampdoria and Torino earlier in his career.
He had found himself out of the picture at Leicester and that meant he went almost five months without ‘match intensity’ between his last game and his debut for the Belgian side.
It seems he wasn’t sitting on his hands, though, instead he spent the time in the off-season ensuring he was fit and ready to go.
That led to him joining in a group practice of personal coaches at Ludus Magnus in Knokke, a place named after a famous Roman gladiator school.
The former Leicester man had learned about the place via word of mouth from other footballers who had used it to keep fit too. They, like Praet, all paid the same €80 price according to manager Diego Poppe.
“While in the past we have seen many footballers with a dramatic condition pass by, Dennis looked very fit when he came to us in June,” he said.
“Dennis walked in and said: ‘I can sign with a club at any time. Try to prepare myself as best as possible.’
“The price for Dennis Praet or Jantje van achter de Hoek is exactly the same. For each athlete we write out a plan, literally with pen and paper. How many kilometres per training, how many high intensity runs, and so on. With Dennis, the focus was on improving his Vo2-max, the maximum oxygen absorption capacity.”
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No points deducted as Leicester board could act early seeing Steve Cooper 10/1 to be the first manager sacked
The fact that Leicester avoided a points deduction, would of course see the club interesting for the best men in the business. This is likely to put heavy pressure on Steve Cooper. So far just two points in four games. With such a ratio, Leicester will be on 19 points at the end of the season, surely not enough to survive.
The next month will be crucial for Steve Cooper, as the club would be attractive for other alternative managers, knowing that they will go in to the job with no disturbance with points being deducted.
Sean Dyche is the favourite to go first, Erik ten Hag second and Enzo Maresca third, followed by Steve Cooper being seen as the fourth one in this list. We believe the club will act fast if they see stumbles as the one against Crystal Palace today, as the lead was lost and crucial mistakes made from the sideline.
The fact that a newly promoted club would consider a manager change is nothing new, as the order is clear and concrete, you cannot mess about as Steve Cooper has done in the games so far. Aston Villa was at least a possible draw, today two more points were thrown into the bin.
Steve Cooper is a manager showing his pragmatic act, and not really having an eye on the individual player. He looks at it all as a group who should stick together and whatever his selections are and how he delivers out minutes of game time should have no say.
Looking at it all from distance, not understanding this at all. Hamza Choudhury and Conor Coady are two players that has been overlooked by Steve Cooper, not being starters in the league so far this season, suddenly they are thrown into the team at a very crucial time, replacing a winger (Ayew) and an offensive midfielder (Ndidi), to do a job in another position. This is management of lower standards and will not be tolerated long term.
We do not, at this time and place, know the reason for the absence of Jannik Vestergaard, but hopefully he is injured or ill, as it looks double trouble big time if Steve Cooper continues to overlook the hierarchy of the players, and again ignoring Ricardo Pereira as an alternative.
Another problem to solve is the use of Bouba Soumare as his presence looks to be seen as a gardening leave for the rest of the season, hopefully being loaned out or sold. The progress of Will Alves and Michael Golding is set on hold.
Points is needed and a win against Everton is a must, if not, Steve Cooper could soon be higher in the list above.
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