Emile Heskey: Leicester City lack the senior players to fight through difficulty

Former Leicester City striker Emile Heskey believes his former club needs a mix of experience with their exciting young talent to move forward and push for promotion.

The Foxes suffered back-to-back relegations and there doesn’t appear light at the end of the tunnel as they languish 18th in League One with just five points from their opening five matches.

Russell Martin has come under immense scrutiny following their torrid start to the season, and many are calling for his head and doubting his credentials already so early on.

After a 4-0 home loss to Oxford United, time is ticking for the former Southampton boss to turn things around.

Difficult

In an exclusive interview with Casino Kings, Heskey said “We’ve had to start again.

“If you look at when we were last in League One, it was when [Jeffrey] Schlupp and players like that came through. [Andy] King was one of them as well.

“I can understand where they are, but the reality is this is something we saw, especially towards the end of last season.

“Recruitment has got to be very on point, and we obviously haven’t done that.

“We’ve got some exciting young lads. Will Alves, Jayden Joseph, Sammy Braybrooke, Louis Page but you need experience around them.

“You need players who are going to help them, galvanise them and get them through games, because they don’t really know how to get through those difficult moments where you’ve got to dig deep.

“I was lucky. I came through at 16 or 17 and I had Steve Walsh, who was probably about 35 or 36. You need players like that who can help you through it.

“We don’t really have those senior players who know how to bite down and fight through difficult periods.

“This is going to be a long period for us. I know a lot of people thought we were just going to come straight back up, but we sold all our players. It was always going to be tough.”

Results

When asked about whether Russell Martin underestimated the challenge Heskey said “He might have looked at it and thought,

“We’ve got this great training ground, we’ve got some good young players, bring in some senior players and it’ll be fine with the way we play football.”

“But you’ve got to graft. The reality is nobody cares about how you play.

“Everyone cares about the results, especially down here. We really need to start getting results.

“He’s probably underestimated that. The way he plays is good, but the fanbase isn’t necessarily too worried about the way we play. It’s all about results.”

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