Ranking the squad, either for whether you’d want to snog them (purely from a football ability perspective of course) or how ready they are for Premier League life has become a bit of a summer tradition at the Fosse Way.
With a new manager at last, we’re trying to imagine how he’s assessing the squad as the 2025/26 season fast approaches.
Goalkeepers
If injury hadn’t blighted part of his season, and if it wasn’t the end of the Jamie Vardy era, Mads Hermansen would have been last season’s Player of the Year. He’s too good for a second season back in the Championship and so we’re all resigned to seeing him sold and wishing him the best. However, unlike when we lost our last number one and found ourselves floundering, we have the next ready made number one in waiting.
Jakub Stolarczyk deserves his chance at the number one shirt, something poor Hermansen never actually got to wear because Danny Ward. Stolarczyk deputised calmly and as confidently as one can when the defence in front of you was riddled with errors. He’s going to love Cifuentes’ assistant, Xavi Calm, because his goalkeeping style is to so calm he’s practically laidback. It’ll be interesting to see whether he takes on more leadership and more of a vocal role once into the first choice role.
The academy graduate fits the profile wanted in most modern goalkeepers, he’s comfortable playing out from the back, he’s decent at shot stopping and he seems capable of organising on set pieces. Cifuentes may not have the luxury of Hermansen, but we’re in pretty good hands regardless.
The problem comes in the depth behind Stolarczyk. There is none. We’ve gone from having a ridiculous amount of goalkeepers on the books to just one first team goalkeeper the second that Hermansen leaves. Behind Stolarczyk, it’s just the academy kids. Steve Bausor has had some game time in pre-season but it’s unlikely we’d be comfortable relying on the 20-year-old if anything were to befall Stolarczyk.
Presumably a goalkeeper with some experience at this level, or higher, will be important. It wouldn’t be a surprise if we picked up an older keeper to add some experience into the mix.
Manager Verdict
C – From a first choice perspective, we’re an A. Stolarczyk is ready and should be able to hold his own. The backup options in case of injury or suspension are non-existent though. Getting the right man who’s happy to be on the bench but can add something to the squad can be tricky. Unless we somehow fail to sell Mads Hermansen and then there’s a different, happier issue.
Assessment
Jakub Stolarczyk: BUILD AROUND
Steve Bausor: SQUAD OPTION
Defenders
A lot of the early summer talk was thinking about the squad and whether those players who’d been out of favour or sent out on loan had a future. Some suggested the 2025/26 Vestergaard style redemption could belong to Harry Souttar. He’s likely to be out until the New Year so we’ll have to wait a little longer to see if that’s possible.
Crucially, past form suggests Cifuentes may prefer four at the back too, which also won’t help Souttar’s cause. That said, he does seem willing to adapt to the situation and squad around him. Given the current squad feels a little more geared to the traditional back four, this could be how we start even if it deviates over time.
Those hoping to get rid of Wout Faes and Jannik Vestergaard may need to wait a little longer. We’d need suitors offering money and particularly for Vestergaard, still only one year into a new three year contract, this feels unlikely.
Ben Nelson is the exciting prospect, back from a successful loan season in the Championship. Full-backs Cifuentes benefits from a few options and choices. A rejuvenated Luke Thomas and a versatile James Justin and Ricardo.
We never really saw where Woyo Coulibaly and Caleb Okoli fit in, so it’s hard to say whether they can adapt and become key men this time around.
Despite the ongoing rumours, Conor Coady remains at the club, he and Vestergaard the elder statesmen of the back line, along with Faes so you have to expect that at least one of them might feature. And who’d put it past Vestergaard to perform yet another redemption arc of his own.
Manager Verdict
B+ – Even factoring in those we hope leave, or who could leave, we aren’t lacking bodies. Cifuentes has a healthy choice of how to shape his back line and who could go in it. There’s already some versatility between the likes of Ricardo, Choudhury if you’d rather bring him here than as a midfielder, and Justin. He’ll have to wait to use Souttar but he should love Ben Nelson.
Assessment
James Justin: BUILD AROUND
Victor Kristiansen: SHOW ME THE MONEY
Ricardo Pereira: BUILD AROUND
Harry Souttar: BUILD AROUND (eventually)
Luke Thomas: BUILD AROUND
Wout Faes: BUH-BYE (realistically it’s probably going to be BUILD AROUND isn’t it)
Jannik Vestergaard: BUH-BYE
Conor Coady: BUH-BYE
Woyo Coulibaly: SQUAD OPTION
Caleb Okoli: SQUAD OPTION
Olubade Aluko: SQUAD OPTION
Midfielders
The keener tacticians out there have been studying how QPR set up and deployed, there’s a particularly interesting piece of analysis by a QPR fan if you want to know more about how he set up and played there.
The midfield was an area that let us down quite a lot last season and you’d think Cifuentes has his work cut out to implement the style he wants with the players we’ve got.
On the plus side, we’ve got some strong players that can sit ahead of and behind the midfield. The downside is that we don’t really have what feels like a strong technician, and definitely not one whose other key strength is to press.
The new man offers Harry Winks a fresh start and given the role he played for Maresca, it’s not hard to see him coming in strong again. He should be happier with the role asked of him too. Whether Cifuentes will develop the work started by Maresca with Ricardo where we’ll see him operate more in midfield and rotating his position. He’s not the only swiss army knife at the Spaniard’s disposal, Choudhury can be deployed in a few different ways too.
The loss will be Wilfred Ndidi who would thrive in the system Cifuentes is likely to work to and while there’s some exciting younger prospects in the list, Will Alves, Michael Golding, they’re not tried and tested with us or in this type of system.
A lot of focus will go to Oliver Skipp following on from his hefty transfer fee. There’s no reason he shouldn’t be able to perform well at this level and he may be the number six of choice. His role last year was a few cameos but on occasion, he did press quite well and recover the ball. He never really had a clear run at it and you always wondered what role he’d been asked to undertake.
Manager Verdict
C- – There’s a big ole gap in the midfielders we’ll keep, that being that none of them really fit the ball recovery, pressing profile. That isn’t to say that Cifuentes can’t convert one or two, but there’s three weeks until the season kicks off. And we’re lacking depth in the type of central midifelders that would thrive in his team in particular. It makes last season’s outcast Harry Winks vital.
Assessment
Hamza Choudhury: SQUAD OPTION
Harry Winks: BUILD AROUND
Oliver Skipp: BUILD AROUND/SQUAD OPTION
Boubakary Soumare: BUH-BYE
Michael Golding: SQUAD OPTION
Will Alves: BUILD AROUND
Kasey McAteer: BUILD AROUND
Wilfred Ndidi: SHOW ME THE MONEY
Sammy Braybrooke: SQUAD OPTION
Forwards
Because our ‘list’ of out and out forwards is more like a singular line, we’re throwing wingers into the mix too because we’re going to need every inch of attacking support unless we bolster. Except the official site wants to list Kasey McAteer as a midfielder, not a forward. We’ll go with it for now.
Fortunately, Cifuentes doesn’t seem averse to playing a false nine, which could see Stephy Mavididi moving more into the middle. But essentially if you’re looking for the out and out strikers it’s the polarising Patson Daka and 16 year old Jake Evans. Unless you are one of the few Daka-heads still out there, this is clearly not ideal going into a Championship season.
Jake Evans is clearly a player we’re keen to hang onto, one of the many we’re committing to a professional contract once old enough. It’s still unlikely he’ll be drafted into a starting role every game. He’ll be a key member of the squad and it’s going to be about building up his experience and getting more first team minutes.
Daka was arguably at his most effective, albeit still missing some insanely easy to finish chances, under Maresca so the Cifuentes style of play should lend itself more to suit him again. While it may not be the popular choice to say that he could be the main man next year, it’s also unclear exactly who would be coming in to buy him? And quite what money or abilities we have to go out and get a different striker/s; so if Cifuentes can make him feel loved again, we may as well try to use him.
As far as wingers are concerned, it’s a little healthier but we could still do with some more reinforcements. Particularly if Mavididi does end up in a more central role. While we’re all foaming at the prospect of Abul Fatawu’s return, it is worth noting that he still hasn’t played a match yet in this pre-season, much as he is getting closer.
Then there’s the wildcard, the young ace up our sleeve: Jeremy Monga. He had moments of brilliance and was a crowd pleaser. He may not start every game but he’ll be a player Cifuentes should love and imagine having terrorised a defence with the likes of Fatawu and being able to give him a break to throw Monga on instead. Glorious.
At the other end of the scale, we have Jordan Ayew and Bobby De Cordova-Reid, bags of experience between them and both should be more than capable of doing something at this level, assuming both stay. Again, it’s hard to see where either could be offloaded to. It’s not quite so obvious where they fit in, but they’re squad options.
The official site doesn’t want to consider Kasey McAteer as a forward, cue his inclusion above. But he’ll likely be deployed in the wide areas too. And there’s still Wanya Marcal-Madivadua as well, back from a weird season of being out on loan in the Netherlands. If he’s ever going to make it at Leicester, this has to be the season.
Manager Verdict
B – Mixing wingers and strikers makes ranking this a little harder. Because from a winger point of view, we’ve got a few options. For pure strikers it’s less than convincing but if Cifuentes can get the most out of the options we do have, we could still be pretty potent on the attack.
Ideally, he’d probably want another striker but you can expect to see others stepping into the false nine role.
Assessment
Jake Evans: SQUAD OPTION
Patson Daka: BUILD AROUND
Abdul Fatawu: BUILD AROUND
Stephy Mavididi: BUILD AROUND
Jeremy Monga: BUILD AROUND
Jordan Ayew: SQUAD OPTION
Bobby De Cordova-Reid: SQUAD OPTION
Wanya Marcal: SQUAD OPTION
The work ahead
From what we know about Cifuentes, his biggest issue looking at our current squad is the lack of midfielders that spring to mind who are true technicians that can apply the pressing, quick ball recovery style he looks for. Wilfred Ndidi springs to mind, but it seems unlikely we’ll hold onto him.
He’s likely to want to buffer the goalkeeping options to mitigate risk there and ideally, he’d probably want another more experienced striker. But it feels like he could deploy the players we do have well and get the best out of some who were overlooked or poorly used by his predecessors.
Official results:
BUILD AROUND: Jakub Stolarczyk, James Justin, Ben Nelson, Harry Souttar, Luke Thomas, Ricardo Pereira, Kasey McAteer, Oliver Skipp, Harry Winks, Will Alves, Abdul Fatawu, Stephy Mavididi, Patson Daka
SQUAD OPTION: Steve Bausor (we can’t have literally just one goalkeeper), Caleb Okoli, Hamza Choudhury, Woyo Coulibaly, Olabade Aluko, Michael Golding, Sammy Braybrooke, Jordan Ayew, Bobby De Cordova-Reid, Wanya Marcal
SHOW ME THE MONEY: Victor Kristiansen, Wilfred Ndidi, Bilal El Khannouss, Mads Hermansen
BUH-BYE: Wout Faes, Jannik Vestergaard, Boubakary Soumare, Conor Coady
The Fosse Way 
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