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Leicester City boss Brendan Rodgers has revealed why there have been a number of notable absentees from the club's opening pre-season friendlies.

The likes of Kasper Schmeichel, Ben Chilwell and Matty James have all been missing from both of the first two games of the summer - wins over Scunthorpe and Cheltenham - without explanation.

But the City boss has now revealed why each of those players hasn't yet featured.

Speaking after the 2-1 win over Cheltenham Town on Saturday, the Foxes boss revealed: "Ben (Chilwell) had a slight issue with his groin but he is fine now, so he should be okay for Tuesday, he is back in training.

"Kasper (Schmeiechel) is just a bit of time, sort of building him up, so he will feature over the course of the next week.

"And Matty (James) unfortunately just had a little occurrence of an injury but it should only be 10 days to 2 weeks before he is back, which is a shame because he's worked ever so hard over pre-season."

And what about Ayoze Perez? The new signing who missed out on Saturday despite scoring in Tuesday's clash?

"He should be fine next week," Rodgers replied. "He just picked up a knock in training and his ankle was swollen up so he will be back next week."

The Foxes were also without Rachid Ghezzal on Saturday, despite the Algerian playing 45 minutes in the win over Scunthorpe earlier in the week.

And Rodgers revealed the personal reason why the winger was absent: "I gave him time off," he added, "he became a father yesterday.

"He trained up until Thursday. It was already planned, which you can do nowadays.

"So, he said his wife was going to give birth on the Friday, so I said 'Yep, okay. Train Thursday and fly back for Friday.

"His wife had a baby boy, which is great, so he has the weekend there, he will fly back tomorrow (Sunday) and get back to work on Monday."