Leicester City endured a January transfer window they’d rather forget.
Ruud van Nistelrooy had hoped to secure at least four new signings, but Leicester only managed to bring in one fresh face: Woyo Coulibaly.
Due to PSR (Profit and Sustainability Rules) issues, the club was unable to make any permanent signings without offloading players, despite the £10m received from the sale of Tom Cannon.
In his programme notes ahead of the Arsenal game, Leicester owner Khun Top acknowledged the challenges: “January was a challenging month for us in the transfer window, where our ability to strengthen was limited by our PSR position.
“We were very pleased to sign Woyo Coulibaly and we explored a number of options to make further additions to Ruud’s squad during the month, but the space available in our PSR calculations did not enable us to add the further quality we all felt would improve the team.”
Leicester also couldn’t bring in any domestic loan players, as Facundo Buonanotte and Odsonne Edouard were occupying the only two available spots.
With that said, it has recently come to light that the club attempted to offload one of these loan players last month.
Leicester tried to cancel Odsonne Edouard’s loan:
According to The Telegraph, Leicester made an effort to terminate Odsonne Edouard’s season-long loan in January, but Crystal Palace rejected their request.
Palace, who signed Edouard for £14m in 2021, were only willing to recall him if they could secure an immediate sale.
At one point, a deal seemed possible, with Atalanta United submitting a £15m bid for Edouard. However, the move collapsed after the Leicester loanee turned down a transfer to the MLS.
Despite not featuring for the Foxes since November, it’s understood that the 27-year-old has maintained a highly professional attitude in training.
Van Nistelrooy explains Edouard absence:
Van Nistelrooy recently addressed Edouard’s absence from matchday squads, attributing it to the intense competition for places in the attacking department.
“He’s competing for two places on the bench with Jamie and Patson [Daka], and so far I’ve been picking the first two,” the Dutchman explained.
“He’s the one who is competing. If I see in training sessions that he can do something better or that he will be of more value than one of the other two, then he will be in the squad and will make minutes.
“That’s the competition. The ones who don’t play, they need to fight for their spot. The ones who play protect their spot.
“The ones who are not in the squad, they fight to be in. That’s what drives us and makes our squad better.”
