Leicester City cannot afford to leave their best players out of their key Premier League clash with West Ham United.

The two teams head into the game at the London Stadium on Sunday as rivals for the top four, with a coveted place in the UEFA Champions League the potential prize for the victor.

Amongst the players that Foxes boss Rodgers has to include is Portuguese right-back Ricardo Pereira.

Whilst not yet having hit the heights throughout 2020/21 due to a multitude of injury issues, the seven-cap Portuguese international remains one of the best-attacking full-backs in the country.

In the two seasons before his devastating cruciate ligament injury, Pereira racked up six goals and ten assists in all competitions for the Foxes – his pace and trickery proving to be potent weapons for the East-Midlanders.

In fact, the Portuguese even added to that excellent record with a rampant performance against West Ham last season. He notched a goal and an assist in a 4-1 thumping of the Hammers at the King Power Stadium in January.

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His performances of course drew plenty of praise, Leicester boss Rodgers going as far as labelling him as “outstanding”.

Even in a season that has been hugely disrupted, Pereira also continues to outperform his rival for the right wing-back role, Marc Albrighton.

According to WhoScored, the former Porto man has produced 2.1 tackles, 1.2 interceptions and 1.5 clearances per game in the Premier League this season. Meanwhile, the Englishman can only rack up 1.1, 0.6 and 0.7 in the same statistics.

The two players are almost identical from an attacking standpoint, too, meaning that Rodgers would not lose any impetus from switching Albrighton for Pereira.

All the signs then point to the Portuguese being an extremely useful inclusion for Leicester against West Ham.

Sitting firmly amongst the club’s players, he has to be played at the London Stadium.

AND in more news,  find out which relegation-threatened monster Leicester have to swoop for in the summer...