BREAKING NEWS: Three big Leicester City selection decisions for Enzo Maresca in intriguing Southampton test

Club football returns as Leicester City go head to head with fellow relegated side and Championship promotion rival Southampton on the south coast on Friday night

Leicester City return to action on Friday night against the one Championship side that controls the ball more than they do.

Southampton have averaged 70 per cent possession in their first five fixtures, with City averaging 65 per cent. But that fact won’t affect Enzo Maresca’s gameplan.

He has said his team intend to keep to their identity, and that the only changes will be the tweaks he makes each week to try to make City more effective on the ball and off it.

“The battle is to win the game,” Maresca said. “Our identity is to control the game with the ball. But at the same time, the main target is to win games.

“You can see clearly the idea they (Southampton) are looking for, controlling the game with the ball like us. In this moment, we are the two teams to have the ball. We are going to try to keep the ball as much as we can.

“We try to change every game in terms of on the ball to find different solutions and different spaces and off the ball to see how we can be aggressive.”

So it can be expected that City’s usual formation, in a 4-1-4-1 out of possession but in a 3-2-4-1 on the ball will remain in place. But that doesn’t mean to say the personnel will stay the same. Here are the biggest three selection decisions for Maresca to make ahead of the game at St Mary’s.

Vestergaard v Coady

Having trained for close to a full week, Conor Coady is now in a position where is available for selection. By Maresca’s own admission, he is not 100 per cent fit. However, he is so important that that doesn’t matter.

So it can be expected that Coady will at least be on the bench for the first time, but the question is whether he will be in the 11. Is Jannik Vestergaard at 100 per cent better than Coady at just shy of 100 per cent? It’s a tricky one.

Vestergaard is doing the job that Maresca wants him to. That the Dane is slow on the transition is something the manager is aware of but it is not such a concern that Vestergaard needs to be dropped at the first opportunity, with tweaks and improvements made in that area since the win over Coventry.

Being against Southampton and one of the better teams in the division may mean it’s not the ideal game for Coady to be handed his first start, in case there is still a little rustiness, and so it may be that he’s eased in with a debut as a substitute late in the match.

Ndidi v Casadei

Cesare Casadei’s effective performances as a substitute in his three Championship games have seen more and more calls from the fanbase for him to start in place of Wilfred Ndidi. It feels like it will come eventually for the Italian, but maybe not yet.

With Southampton keeping the ball so well, Maresca may want to stick with the player who is better out of possession, and that remains Ndidi. Casadei has shown that he’s good on the ball and makes excellent runs into forward areas, but when it comes to pressing and tracking runners, Ndidi’s defensive abilities make him the better player in that regard, and so the Nigerian may be retained.