Aston Villa legend Gabriel Agbonlahor has voiced his concerns on the decision by Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers to bench striker Kelechi Iheanacho.
Despite finishing as the team’s top scorer in the last campaign, the Nigeria international has been restricted to making appearances from the bench in most matches played this campaign.
Out of 110 minutes, he has played so far this campaign, they have all come from the bench and his introduction helped the team to snatch a 2-2 draw against Burnley in their last league assignment at King Power Stadium on Saturday.
The 24-year-old has featured in matches against Wolverhampton Wanderers which Leicester won 1-0, in the 4-1 defeat against West Ham United, the 2-1 away win against Norwich City, the 1-0 defeat against Manchester City, the 2-1 defeat against Brighton & Hove Albion and the 2-2 draw against Burnley.
In all the aforementioned matches, he has come on in the second half and he was instrumental, and lately, he set up Jamie Vardy to score the second goal against Burnley.
And with Rodgers preferring to use the striking partnership of Vardy, Harvey Barnes, Ayoze Perez, and Youri Tielemans, Agbonlahor believes if handed more adequate time Iheanacho can be of good help to the Foxes.
“You look at Iheanacho, what does he have to do to get a start?” Agbonlahor asked Talk Sports, as quoted by Completesports.
“You know like he comes on, scores, and is back on the bench.”
On Saturday, Rodgers came under heavy attack from Leicester fans after he substituted Ademola Lookman for Maddison with 12 minutes left to the final whistle but has explained what prompted his decision.
“The reason behind it was that obviously, Ade played in the week, he’s just settling into the squad and into our way of working,” Rodgers told reporters.
“He had a good 65 minutes during the week, and so we took him off knowing that he was going to start in this game.
“I thought, in particular, the second half he was excellent, started to tire a little bit in that period and the idea was to try and bring in another player that can create something.
“In my time here James Maddison, has in the main, been outstanding, he’s obviously been unfortunate with injury so he’s a player of real talent that we’re bringing into the team to try and unlock the defence towards the end because we had a lot of ball and pressure in that area.
“That was the reason why.”
