The full-back could be out for the rest of the season after rupturing his Achilles during Tuesday’s 3-0 Carabao Cup victory over Newport County.
The injury to James Justin prompted a Leicester City transfer meeting, with the club looking to sign a new full-back in the January transfer window.
Justin has been ruled out for most of the season with an Achilles rupture, suffered in the midweek win over Newport. He was due to undergo an operation on Thursday night.
With Justin out, City is short on full-backs. Their only other long-term absentees are right-back Ricardo Pereira and left-back Ryan Bertrand.
There is no return date set for Bertrand, while Ricardo is scheduled to return to training in January, the Portuguese also tore his Achilles back in August. But, City won’t want to overload a player that has had a mountain of injury troubles over recent years.
That leaves just Timothy Castagne and Luke Thomas as the club’s only recognized fit full-backs. Justin’s diagnosis, which came through on a scan on Wednesday, prompted manager Brendan Rodgers and the recruitment staff to hold a meeting on Thursday morning.
“We’ll definitely have to look at the full-back position, for sure,” he said. “It comes into our consideration, we had a meeting with the recruitment team on that, so they’re well underway looking at possibilities for us.”
Rodgers is approaching the January transfer window with renewed hope, having seen a tightening of finances rule out his plans for a squad refresh in the summer. The start to this season has not changed where he thinks City needs to strengthen, and so a new, speedy, right-sided winger was set to be a transfer priority. A new full-back may now supersede that.
The city has made just one January signing in the previous three winter windows under Rodgers, bringing in center-back Ryan Bennett on loan from the Wolves in 2020. Their last permanent signing in January came under Claude Puel in 2018, when they bought winger Fousseni Diabate.
