Steve Cooper has seen signs in pre-season that Leicester City are ready to announce themselves as a Premier League club again after a one-year hiatus. Cooper, who replaced Enzo Maresca at the helm this summer, has been tasked with leading the Foxes on their mission to, in the first instance, survive upon their return to the top flight.
Cooper successfully kept Nottingham Forest in the division on their first campaign back in the top tier in 2023, and what he has witnessed up close this summer as the Foxes – without promotion hero Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall – prepare for the new term has heartened him.
The Welshman hopes that what his side produce on the pitch will unify all facets of the club, including the fanbase. All within the confines of Seagrave will be striving to give something the supporters are both proud of and excited by.
“I could speak on behalf of everybody, particularly the players, that I see a real focus and determination to show that we’re a Premier League club,” Cooper said. “We obviously are in terms of status, infrastructure and recent history, but we had to take the spell out of the league and now we’re back in.
“The players all have their own personal stories of what they want to get out of the season and what they’ve missed from being in the Premier League and I think that’s good because it creates a real hunger in the group. If we can join that all together, and make it one, then it will help in our quest.
“First and foremost, that starts with showing the supporters. Any successful team is always on the back of unconditional support, but it’s our responsibility to give the supporters something to believe in, something to connect to, something to be excited about and something to be proud of.
“I want them to be coming to watch the team and leaving thinking: ‘I’m looking forward to seeing that again’. Hopefully on the back of some good results. That’s on me, that’s on us as staff and players to do our bit and it’s a mutual thing. We can’t expect brilliant support if we don’t do really good things on the pitch. It’s definitely a two-way thing.
“That’s why we’re really honed in on our work and everyone is giving everything they can every day. It’s really important to see how hard the players work and how committed they are to everything. Anything you throw at them, there’s no complaints. Nobody is looking to cut corners, everybody is really engaged in the best they can be every day.
“We’re still in pre-season mode and focused every day, but we know that motivation is that come the start of the Premier League, we want to become a team that is competing really well in the league and showing who we are. If we do that, we know the supporters will be with us altogether and it becomes a powerful thing.”
The Foxes have been out in Evian-les-Bains on Lake Geneva this summer, as they’ve done previously, for their pre-season preparations. They’ve beaten Shrewsbury Town but were defeated by Italians Palermo in Chesterfield, and by Bundesliga side Augsburg in Germany.
They’ll conclude their pre-season friendly campaign with a trip to Ligue 1 side Lens in France this Saturday, before all attention is firmly switched to the visit of Tottenham on Monday week (8pm) for the Premier League curtain raiser.
Cooper has been pleased by what he’s seen by way of a collective attitude from the squad – which he’ll likely be wanting to add to in the remaining weeks of the transfer window – which is currently at his disposal.
“There’s a really good spirit among the lads, which is a carry on from last season. It’s really important that we, not just keep that going, but try to improve it and enhance it, especially with the new faces in the group,” he said.
“There’s loads of returns from coming away and you really want to maximise the 24 hours really that you’ve got with the players. One of things that can really be gained is the building and enhancement of relationships whether it’s from the players or staff members and that’s what we’re trying to do.
“They’re a really engaged group of players. They’re very coachable, very interested and work very hard. They are very much together and there really is a good vibe around how these guys work together. There’s many facets to pre-season that you want to make the most of and games are one of them, but training as well. There’s a six-week pre-season and we’ve put it into two blocks.
“We’ve had four weeks of a heavy schedule and a preparation phase with lots of double sessions and meetings, extra-curricular stuff and setting who we want to be this year and how we go about it, inclusive of the two trips to France and Germany. It’s very different trips, but the guys just get on with whatever comes their way.
“We’ve had four weeks of really high demands of every aspect of performance and the last two weeks of pre-season are about putting it all together and getting ready for the start of the Premier League and the challenges that we’ll face. We get back to Leicester and have the game in Lens and then the following week is the start of the Premier League. We want to finish properly.”
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