A couple of days behind on this one I know, but Michael Johnson has made the move to Leicester (reuniting with Sven-Goran Eriksson of course):
Michael Johnson has moved on loan to Leicester City for the 2011/12 season.
The 23-year-old midfielder missed the whole of last season's campaign through injury and moves to the King Power Stadium in a bid to bolster the Foxes' promotion push and regain his own match fitness.
Since suffering an abdominal injury in 2008, the popular Academy graduate has featured just twice for the Blues having struggled to re-establish himself in the club's first choice side, but he made a welcome return to the City picture last season by making a number of appearances for the Elite Development Squad.
It feels like the past couple of seasons or so I've written ad finitum about attempted comebacks for Johnson. The hope is that this time he can stay injury-free and play a full season in a Leicester side expected to mount a serious bid for promotion.
There was an expectation that Johnson would perhaps go out on loan last January, but the club felt that it was in his (and the clubs) best interests to remain under the supervision of City's staff.
The difficulty for Johnson is that despite the undoubted talent (although he has only managed just short of 50 games for the club) he was/is/will be that the strides the club has made the past two years or so he has been injured means that his opportunity has almost certainly gone. The side isn't the one he first walked into where transfer funds were tight and the midfield area was one he could be a commanding presence in.
That said, I still don't think they have replaced the style of player Johnson is so in that respect there may well be a window of opportunity. The difficulty may well be in convincing Roberto Mancini, a manager yet to see him competitively - and perhaps less inclined to do so than either Eriksson or Mark Hughes may well have been.
It has been a long road back for Johnson to even get to this stage; whatever the outcome the hope is that at the very least he can get back to playing on a regular basis - whether that it was City or elsewhere remains to be seen.