Ayoze Perez admits Leicester struggles hard to take, with lack of game taking its toll

Ayoze Perez has admitted that he hasn’t found this season “easy at all” for Leicester due to his struggles for consistent game time.

Perez has been in and around the Leicester first team since joining from Newcastle in 2019 for a reported fee of around £30million. During his time at the club, he has scored 14 goals and set up an additional 11 for the Foxes.

The Spaniard has, however, had much less game time than in previous years but due to no fault of his own.

He has seemingly fallen out of favour with Leicester manager Brendan Rodgers, who now seems to prefer both Harvey Barnes and Ademola Lookman over the 28-year-old.

The forward has only had 11 starts this season despite appearing 25 times. In the 2020/21 season, he racked up 21 starts.

The 28-year-old spoke after Leicester‘s 4-1 win over Southampton on Sunday – during which he scored two goals – on how has found this season.

“It hasn’t been a great season for myself, not easy at all, but it’s a great feeling for some game time and to be able to score two goals,” Perez said to Leicester’s official club website.

“Obviously I’m happy to be able to be in a position to do that.

“We were trying to manage the game the last couple of minutes, keeping the ball so they could not attack but we found the spaces and we got up there and we have a great link between Ricky [Ricardo Pereira] and myself. It was a great goal.”

Perez came off the bench in the 63rd minute and showed his class by scoring two late goals to secure the Foxes an eighth-placed finish in the Premier League.

Leicester have narrowly missed out on European football as they finished outside the top seven in the Premier League. The club fell short by just four points as West Ham United took seventh with 56 points.