Puel Confirms Achilles Surgery For James
- Matty James will play no further part this term after having surgery on his Achilles this week
- Daniel Amartey is set to return to training next week
- Wilfred Ndidi will miss the fixture after being sent off against Brighton on Saturday
The dynamic central midfielder has not featured since the 1-1 Premier League draw with AFC Bournemouth in early March and will now begin his recovery in preparation for the 2018/19 campaign.
The Leicester City boss also provided an update on the fitness of Daniel Amartey, who injured his hamstring during the first half against the Cherries.
Speaking to the media on Thursday afternoon, Puel said: “Daniel Amartey will come back with the team in the training session next week.
“For Matty James, he has had surgery on Tuesday on his Achilles tendon and he will not be available until the end of the season. He will be ready for the next season.
“Of course, it’s difficult but it’s a good thing because he knows what his problem is. It’s not a big problem but now he needs patience and a good recovery. He will be ready for next season.”
The Foxes will also be without Wilfred Ndidi, who begins his two-game suspension after being sent off during the 2-0 win at Brighton & Hove Albion last weekend.
Puel pointed out that while Ndidi is a player with unique attributes, City have plenty of talented players within their ranks.
He added: “We have three solutions with [Vicente] Iborra, [Adrien] Silva and [Hamza] Choudhury also available so we will see for Saturday our midfield.
“It’s different attributes than Wilfred and we have to find the solution to give a collective response.
“Wilfred has attributes to recover a lot of balls, he’s strong in midfield and we cannot replace him with the same attributes but we can replace him with a collective response by sharing this part of the job between all the players.”