The pattern of Woyo Coulibaly’s Leicester City appearances so far suggests he is nearing a first start for the club.
City’s sole January signing played a few minutes on his debut against Tottenham, then got a quarter of an hour against Everton before 30 minutes in the FA Cup defeat to Manchester United. Could he get a whole half or more against Arsenal this weekend?
While City fans wanted a new right-back signed because of their frustration with James Justin’s performances and with what felt like a growing trend of teams exploiting City down his flank, Ruud van Nistelrooy wanted a right-back because of the lack of options.
With Ricardo Pereira injured, City had nobody at right-back other than Justin, and van Nistelrooy was keen to see that addressed
But Coulibaly’s standing in the pecking order seemed to be made clear when he arrived and van Nistelrooy described him as “cover”.
Now the 25-year-old is trying to break free from that reputation and earn his first start for the club, and that means proving to van Nistelrooy that he has successfully adapted to life in the Premier League.
“We see his talent, we see his potential,” van Nistelrooy said. “He’s been making more minutes in every game, and had a good spell as well against United coming on.
“He’s adapting well. He’s learning about how we want to play, how we train, adapting to a new culture and language.
“He gets time to be adjusted in all of this and see how we can use him for the coming games.”
But even without starting, perhaps Coulibaly is having the desired effect anyway. Justin now knows his place is under greater threat, while the same is true for Victor Kristiansen on the other side, given Coulibaly can also play at left-back.
