Leicester City defender Wesley Fofana has been told that he is “not ready” to move to a bigger club amid interest from Chelsea.
The young centre-back was one of Leicester’s marquee signings ahead of the 2020/21 campaign. They paid Saint-Etienne around £36.5m to sign him.
Fofana came straight into their first team and he was one of the Premier League’s breakout stars during his debut season.
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Unfortunately, his progress was hampered last year as he suffered a serious knee injury. He returned before the end of the season and he is now being linked with a move to Chelsea.
It is said that Fofana is happy at Leicester and they do not want to sell him this summer. Yet they would consider letting him go if Chelsea bid £80-85m for him.
Former Liverpool player Steve Nicol has taken this opportunity to claim that the defender is not yet ready to join Chelsea:
“If Fofana goes to Chelsea he’s off his head,” Nicol told ESPN FC.
“The kid’s not ready, he burst onto the scene – you could say – but he’s not anywhere close to being the finished article.
“His biggest problem is his starting position. Playing for Leicester week-in, week-out even if you’re making mistakes, you’ll learn quicker and you’ll then be the finished article.
“You’re not going to be doing that at Chelsea if you’re not playing regularly, he needs to play regularly and he’ll be off his head to go to Chelsea.”
Ex-Chelsea man Frank Leboeuf has also waded in, suggesting that Fofana would be better off staying at Leicester for now:
“It’s always a bet that you make because you never know when the defender’s going to settle down,” Leboeuf added.
“With Fofana, it’s a tricky situation, you want to get a young player, I think he’s going to be one of the best central defenders in the world, now to say you have to spend £80m to get him where the guy’s not even international, only play for St Etienne and Leicester, got injured last season, even if he’s been absolutely fantastic it’s difficult to say ‘okay, we’re going to spend that’.
“For the players, he plays for Leicester, he has a bright future and he knows that Koulibaly has just signed, Thiago Silva is there, Chalobah is still so where is he going to be put in that situation? Is there going to be a rotation system?
“How many games am I going to play? I don’t know if I want to take that bet,…
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