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A quiet transfer window, but nothing to worry about for Foxes

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January was a busy month on the pitch for Leicester City, but very quiet off it. Having recruited just three players during the transfer window, Claudio Ranieri spoke of his confidence and faith in our current squad. Top of the table and with just two league defeats to our name, it’s hard to disagree with his logic.

The Foxes are not usually prolific in the January transfer window, the majority of signings having come in the summer over the years. While this transfer window never looked to be a busy one, Leicester fans, myself included, hoped and in some cases, expected, a striker. Somebody to support Jamie Vardy and a back-up for Shinji Okazaki. Now that the window has shut, we’re technically one striker down instead, Andrej Kramaric departing on loan to Bundesliga outfit, Hoffenheim.

Kramaric’s departure was not unexpected. The Croatian has hopes of playing in the Euros this summer but had barely made the substitutes bench for Leicester this season. His rare appearances have come in Cup competitions and they hadn’t been successful outings for him. He looked like a player who wasn’t in Ranieri’s plans and who desperately needed some game time, and a goal. Foxes fans had high hopes when we signed him just a year ago. Back then we were a team struggling for goals, bottom of the table and hoping for our luck to change. His debut was promising but for one reason or another, he wasn’t instantly on goal scoring form but we were looking forward to seeing how his second season would go.

With Nigel Pearson’s departure, all players’ futures were up in the air for a while. For some players, it was a new lease of life. Danny Simpson and Danny Drinkwater were both players who weren’t at the top of the pecking order last season, but now deserve and dominate their place in the team. Kramaric was unfortunately on the other end of this luck. It’s not surprising that Ranieri wanted to bring in his own man, Okazaki, and it always looked like one existing striker would suffer because of this. To be fair though, I think most Foxes fans thought it would be Leonardo Ulloa. Given Ulloa’s struggle with confidence this season, many also don’t feel that letting Kramaric leave, even on a loan with a recall clause, is a good idea. The one thing I kept reading during the transfer window was that replacing Ulloa with a better striker would further our league chances.

A constant rumour prior to the window’s opening was that we’d sign Charlie Austin. It’s no secret that we put in a sizeable bid for the then QPR striker over the summer. One that didn’t meet their requirement. It also seemed that Austin was unsure about joining us. Southampton have got themselves a bargain when you consider they’ve secured Austin for just £4 million. A lot of fans have questioned why we couldn’t have bought him, but it seems he had no intention of coming to us at any point. His quality is unquestionable but I was never sure I saw him slotting in alongside Vardy.

The two rumours that dominated the media once the window was open was Chelsea striker, Loic Remy, and CSKA Moscow striker, Ahmed Musa. While it seems that money was the thing that made us pull out of any Musa deal (we bid around £18 million but they wanted another £2-3 million), it’s unclear what happened to the Remy one. With neither having materialised by deadline day’s evening, the club confirmed that no further signings would be made. The backlash and overreaction on social media ensured I had no desire to continue tracking the day’s deals.

We did make signings though, albeit just a few and they certainly showed Ranieri’s intent for strengthening positions and bringing in young players. Our first deal was done very early on as we secured young, English winger, Demarai Gray. We’ve already seen what attracted Ranieri to him and he looks incredibly promising. What he can learn from Riyad Mahrez, Marc Albrighton and co will be invaluable this season. Joining him a couple of weeks later was Daniel Amartey, a young Ghanaian defender from FC Copenhagen. While all we’ve seen of him so far is videos online, he comes with bags of pace and it already looks like he would form a good playing relationship with our side and in particular, N'Golo Kante. Together they cost £9.7 million. There was also a third signing in 18-year-old Danish goalkeeper, Daniel Iversen. He was signed for an undisclosed fee from Esbjerg and with his age, it’s not likely we’ll see much of him just yet.

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I have found it hard to be as disappointed as other Leicester fans with the shortage of signings. I would have liked to have strengthened our attacking line, but we haven’t struggled for goals and with Okazaki hitting form and Vardy getting back to his best, it doesn’t look so worrying. I know the question is around if we can keep them injury free but our back room staff have done an incredible job so far and there’s no reason to expect that to change. To put it into perspective, Vardy has had three recognised injuries this season. How many Premier League matches has he missed? None.

Something that seemed to upset fans more than us not signing a striker though was in who we let leave. While we didn’t sell any of our first team squad, several others did go out on loan along with Kramaric. Both in the form of defenders, Ritchie De Laet going to promotion hopefuls, Middlesbrough and Yohan Benalouane linking up with a former Leicester manager, Paulo Sousa, at Fiorentina. The decision to let two defenders leave on paper may seem fairly drastic. However, both have found their game time limited. It’s going to be difficult for anybody to dislodge the current back line of Simpson, Wes Morgan, Robert Huth and Christian Fuchs. We do still have cover for each position too in Ben Chilwell, Marcin Wasilewski, Daniel Amartey and when back in the fold, Jeff Schlupp and Liam Moore. I have to assume we also have recall clauses in both Benalouane and De Laet’s deals too, Ranieri and the club seem too sensible not to have.

The Liverpool match showed that our players are as up for it as ever and still not showing any signs of tiring from our frantic, quick style of play. We may not have added too many new faces this January, but this team are just a few points away from setting a best points tally in the Premier League for the Foxes and still top the table. Only time will tell if some fans fears about our lack of depth are right. Until then, it’s time to place our faith fully behind the existing squad. It’s the least they deserve.