Leicester City boss Enzo Maresca doesn’t believe his side are better than Burnley at this point, making this candid admission to Leicestershire Live.
Taking 33 points from a possible 36, they look to be strong contenders to win the title along with Ipswich Town, who will struggle to keep up with the Midlands side if the latter continues to pick up points at the rate they currently are.
Having lost the likes of James Maddison, Harvey Barnes and Timothy Castagne in the summer, with the former two proving to be real assets in the final third for Maresca’s side in the Premier League last term, the Foxes have done extremely well to get themselves into their current position.
On paper, they should have been at the top end of the table regardless of whether they enjoyed a good start to the campaign considering the strength of their squad, but most of their fans didn’t expect this start.
Not only did they have to deal with departures, but their new signings needed to settle in as well and the whole squad needed to adapt to Maresca’s style of play.
Thankfully for them, they have been able to take Maresca’s advice on board quickly and are now strong favourites to get themselves back to the top flight at the first time of asking.
Considering how well the Foxes have done, comparisons are being made between them and the Clarets, who won the second-tier title at the end of last term.
But Maresca has been keen to get away from any talk that his team are better than Vincent Kompany’s side were during the 2022/23 campaign.
He said: “I don’t think we are better than Burnley to be honest. Because they destroyed the Championship last year with 101 points. In this moment, we still need 70 more points to go a little bit more than them.
“It’s disrespect to talk about us and not Burnley. We are happy because everything is working well.
“This is the journey that we start and the direction is correct. But we don’t know if in the second half (of the season), we slump. We don’t know. It’s football. Many things can happen.
“The only thing we can control is the way we want to play. The results depend on many details.”
