Wayne Rooney admits that Leicester City have a “huge advantage” over most of their Championship rivals, having only recently been relegated from the Premier League.
Leicester, who will host Birmingham City at St Andrew’s Stadium on Monday, are top of the Championship standings, having won 17 of their 21 matches this season. Leeds United and Southampton, the other two teams recently relegated from League One, are currently third and fourth respectively.
Leicester manager Enzo Maresca will be able to field a trio of Harry Winks, Wilfred Ndidi and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall. In addition, they have a number of players with extensive Premier League experience in defence and attack.
“In the Championship you’re always going to be at an advantage if you’re a team that’s come from the Premier League, that’s normal,” Rooney said. “It’s no coincidence that Leicester are where they are, Southampton are where they are, Leeds are also where they are.
“You have a big advantage purely because of the players’ wages. The better the players, the better the team. It’s important for us to know that they have a lot of experience and a lot of quality in the team and how to counteract that and work on exploiting their weaknesses.”
Rooney may not be able to rotate his line-up from the 1-0 win over Cardiff because of the Blues’ crippling injury list. Oliver Burke, a Werder Bremen loanee, was among eight senior players missing midweek.
Rooney added: “We’ll see how the players recover. We watched bits and pieces of the Leicester game before the Cardiff game to plan ahead. We will do everything we can to try and win.
“Leicester are a fantastic team. They can make your job very difficult, so we know we are in for a very tough game.”