Harry Souttar only joined the Foxes in January, but he must already be considering departing after less than a year at the club
- Leicester City is dominating the Championship with 10 wins out of their 11 league fixtures, putting them at the top of the standings.
- Despite previous high hopes, Harry Souttar is struggling to find playing time and is now well down the pecking order under new head coach Enzo Maresca.
- Considering Souttar’s lack of game-time and potential value, it may be beneficial for both the player and the club to consider a loan or possible transfer in the January window.
As expected by many, Leicester City are making easy work of most of their Championship rivals in the early stages of the 2023-24 campaign.
In addition to bringing in new players, new head coach Enzo Maresca has retained a large portion of the group that descended from the Premier League earlier in the year.
The Foxes are in first place in the rankings heading into the second international break of the season after winning 10 of their first 11 league games. They are almost 10 points ahead of Preston North End, who are in third place, who are leading the chase.
| Championship Table (As it stands w/c October 9th) | ||||
| Team | P | GD | Pts | |
| 1 | Leicester City | 11 | 17 | 30 |
| 2 | Ipswich Town | 11 | 12 | 28 |
| 3 | Preston North End | 11 | -2 | 20 |
| 4 | Sunderland | 11 | 8 | 19 |
| 5 | Leeds United | 11 | 6 | 19 |
| 6 | Birmingham City | 11 | 4 | 18 |
| 7 | Norwich City | 11 | 2 | 17 |
| 8 | Cardiff City | 11 | 2 | 17 |
Wilfred Ndidi, Wout Faes, Jamie Vardy, Ricardo Pereira, and Kieran Dewsbury-Hall are just a few of the players that played consistently last season and are all crucial to City’s early-season success.
Harry Souttar, who is now having a difficult time at the King Power Stadium, is one player in Maresca’s team who isn’t contributing much.
Standing at 6 feet 6 inches, Souttar was always going to draw attention as he grew older due to his size and presence. Last January, after excelling for Stoke City before and after suffering a serious knee injury in 2021, Leicester spent close to £15 million on the Australia international defender.
How has Harry Souttar performed for Leicester City?
While Souttar was given immediate access to Premier League action by the team’s then-manager Brendan Rodgers in February 2023, Leicester lost seven straight games while starting Souttar, and his playing time decreased after Adam Sadler and Dean Smith took over for the remaining 2022–2023 season.
And it is now clear to see, despite starting against his former club Stoke this past weekend for the first time in league action this season, that Souttar is well down the pecking order under Maresca, with his only other outing coming in the EFL Cup against Liverpool.
Souttar was afforded an opportunity because of Maresca’s squad rotation following three matches in the space of seven days, but Wout Faes, Jannik Vestergaard and Conor Coady are all ahead of the 24-year-old in the Italian’s thoughts.
Whilst having a solid enough game against Stoke, Souttar’s position at Leicester is unlikely to change, and that is why he needs to think about his future.
Should Leicester City think about letting Harry Souttar depart in January?
He is likely to get barely any game-time between now and the January transfer window, and that is a period of time in the current campaign that should be in Souttar’s thoughts.
The defender would walk into the majority of Championship sides and there would be plenty of top flight teams overseas that would probably snap Leicester’s hands off if they were offered Souttar on loan for the second half of 2023-24.
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