Leicester City Transfer Mistakes: Selling These Two Players Was A Blunder In Recent Times

Leicester Should Not Have Committed These Blunders In Recent Times

Leicester City’s fortunes over the past three years in the Premier League have been a roller coaster ride. The Foxes managed to pull off a stunning escape in their first season after their return to the Premier League under Nigel Pearson in the 2014-15 season, before going on to shock the entire football fraternity next season by winning the league title under Claudio Ranieri.

This term they found themselves struggling and looked set to go from being Champions to getting relegated, which led to the sacking of Ranieri. However, they have managed to spark a renaissance under new boss Craig Shakespeare and look set to stay in the top division for another season.

Over the years, Leicester have made some terrific transfers signing the likes of Riyad Mahrez, N’Golo Kante etc., on the cheap and have enjoyed some fairly decent success in their dealings. However, there have been some mistakes that have been committed in the market which have hurt the club. Here are two such mistakes Leicester have made in the transfers in recent years.

Selling N’Golo Kante

This one is quite obvious. The surprise title triumph last season was mainly built on the excellence of three players – Jamie Vardy, Riyad Mahrez, and N’Golo Kante. Surely the rest of the squad played an important role, but if not for these three, the dream of the title would never have materialised for the Foxes.

Having joined Leicester at the beginning of the season from French club Caen, Kante took the Premier League by surprise with his excellent performances in the middle of the park. His work-rate, his endless energy and his incessant running on the pitch made everyone sit up and take notice. The Frenchman played a huge hand in Leicester’s title win and it wasn’t surprising that the big teams came calling for him last summer.

The Foxes needed to make a statement of intent and try and keep him from leaving. Instead, they let Kante go and the results have been there for everyone to see. While the Frenchman looks set for another Premier League winners medal with Chelsea, Leicester will do well to finish mid-table.

Signing Ahmed Musa

Ahmed Musa was supposed to add spark to the Leicester attack when he arrived in the summer from CSKA Moscow for an initial club record fee of £16 million, which was later eclipsed by Islam Slimani’s £29 million arrival from Sporting Lisbon.

However, a lack of trust from the managers, first Ranieri and now Shakespeare, has seen Musa struggle to get any sort of decent run in the side and has often had to make do with coming on from the bench, with very little time to leave a mark on the game.

Having started out as a striker alongside Vardy in the early parts of the season, his ineffectiveness led to Shinji Okazaki and Islam Slimani getting ahead of him in the pecking order. The Foxes have tried him out on the flanks as well, but he has made no impact from the wide areas either and remains behind Mahrez, Marc Albrighton, and Demarai Gray in the order of preference. 30 appearances across all competitions with only 13 starts and 4 goals to show for, Musa has proved to be a poor investment from Leicester.