'Frustrated' Leicester Starlet Gray Speaks Out Over Lack Game Time Under Shakespeare

Demarai Gray has expressed his immense 'frustration' over his lack of playing time for Leicester City under manager Craig Shakespeare.

The young winger was quoted in The Sun as he spoke out about how little time on the pitch he had been given ever since Claudio Ranieri's former number two took up the reins at the King Power stadium.

Gray has appeared from the substitutes' bench in all three Premier League matches so far this season and, with his annoyance deeply entrenched in his replies to questions about his lack of minutes, revealed that he was not happy about the current state of affairs.

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He stated: “I am not happy with the amount of football I am playing at the moment.

“I respect the manager and he picks his team. But I want to play as much as possible in the Premier League and at the moment that is not the case.

“I just have to get my head down and get on with it and come off the bench or whatever, play well in a cup game and give the manager a headache.

“But I get so frustrated when I don’t play and the manager knows I just want to play football. I am not just going to sit there and say nothing. If I was happy at not playing I think that would be more of an issue.

“People misunderstand this sometimes and think my morale might not be as good as it should be. But I just want to play football and when I’m not playing it’s frustrating because I know what I can bring to the team.”

Gray, 21, was the subject of plenty of interest from Bournemouth in the recent transfer window, and the Cherries saw two bids for the pacy wideman rejected by the Foxes as deadline day approached.

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The England Under-21 international admitted that all the talk of a possible move did get to him a bit, but claimed that Leicester prevented him from leaving by offering to hand him more opportunities in the coming weeks.

He added: “There was interest on deadline day and a lot going on. Obviously I was away with the U21s so that took my mind off it a little bit. But a lot was going on.

“Did I think I was going to leave Leicester? There were a few bids flying around.

“Leicester sat me down and told me how they are going to use me and the impact they see me having on the team. But deadline day is manic and you never know what is going to happen.”