Former Manchester United defender Ritchie de Laet has said that Leicester City are raring to go when the season kicks off this weekend. Leicester City managed to miss out on promotion last season after suffering a defeat against Watford in the cruellest of circumstances last season.

Now, they are being fuelled by this defeat according to de Laet, who recently made the move to Leicester a permanent one. Pre-season has been extremely tough for the club, but it has helped them get a lot of fitness under their belt according to de Laet.

Leicester City’s first match of the season will be against Middlesbrough. Even though Middlesbrough are only expected to be a play-off contender, this is unlikely to prevent Leicester City from having one of the toughest matches of the season. They will be facing another contender for the promotion spots in the form of Leeds United next weekend. De Laet has said that it is imperative that Leicester go into the Leeds match with three points on the board from this encounter. Middlesbrough have been so far brilliant in the pre-season friendly matches, and Leicester expect a tough encounter.
Leicester City, though, have a great record against Middlesbrough at the Riverside stadium as they have not suffered a defeat since 2002.

“We have had four or five weeks of really hard graft and we just want to get going now. I feel all right. I have had a couple of 45 minutes and a full 90 as well, so I feel great and I just want to get going. We have done a lot of running and we had a really hard week in Austria, where it was hot with high humidity. It was training in the mountains and good preparation. It is looking good,” said the former United man.