This Leicester star could leave for either of these clubs

Four and a half years after joining from Birmingham City, Demarai Gray has struggled to reach the heights of his potential at Leicester City, but that hasn’t stopped other Premier League clubs from being heavily interested.

Tottenham Hotspur’s have been interested in the Leicester City left-winger for almost two years, with this pursuit being actively pursued by current manager, José Mourinho, according to the Leicester Mercury. However, this time around it’s Newcastle United who have enquired about the 24-year-old, who is in the last year of his contract, as Steve Bruce looks to add additional pace and dribbling to his already adept wings.

I’ve mentioned previously that Leicester City lack a player of Allan Saint-Maximin’s profile, a progressive, ball-carrying winger who is exceptional at beating his opponent one-on-one. When you look at the profiles of the current Foxes wingers, Gray is the only player who ranks closely to Saint-Maximin in the aforementioned metrics. Undoubtedly, this is an area Leicester City need to strengthen, but losing Gray is a further step-backwards.

Brendan Rodgers has made it fairly clear that Gray’s optimum usage is from the bench, as previous managers; Claude Puel, and Claudio Ranieri, also agreed with this sentiment. This is three separate managers, with three drastically different footballing ideologies, that all agree on the principle, Gray is better from the bench – and the data definitely proves this.

When looking at purely substitutes, Demarai Gray was one of the higher contributors in the entire Premier League, although his 18 substitute appearances definitely helped this. Fundamentally, Gray creates a goal for the Foxes at a rate of 0.87 per 90 – which is the best in the squad by a sizeable margin.

It frustrates a lot of the Leicester City fan base that his performances when he starts offer no relation to those off the bench. Having this “super sub” tag line next to your name is difficult to surpass, look at the likes of Javier Hernández (or Chicharito), but is it detrimental for the Foxes to have an explosive, good chance creator in their arsenal, ready to penalise the tired legs of opponents? I’d say it’s not – and with a market value of £13.05m, if Rodgers believe now is the right time to sell, it shouldn’t be for the less than £20m.

There’s also the recurring argument of Leicester City having more fixtures this season, therefore allowing a wider spread of minutes to the squad – I see Gray being the most benefited party in this. Maybe then, the former-Birmingham City winger will prove his worth as a starter for this East Midlands outfit.