Leicester player not in boss’s plans has clubs tracking

Leicester City’s Ayoze Perez has long since been abandoned by Brendan Rodgers. Now, transfer speculation has emerged for an exit from the King Power.

101 appearances, 14 goals, 11 assists. These are the achievements of Spaniard Perez with the Foxes. After £30m was spent to bring a versatile Premier League forward to the club, they were expected to remain a mainstay of the side.

Fate would have other priorities. In Rodgers’ maiden campaign, ‘Ayo’ was a key feature on the right of attack. Playing as a right-winger with the support of Ricardo Pereira behind, Perez was impressive though not clinical or devastating.

This is the only conclusion we can have on the Spanish forward’s time with Leicester. To further illustrate this already clear point, according to Understat, across his whole time (101 appearances) he has amassed an average of 0.5 xG90 + xA90 each season. These numbers have actually been helped by lesser game time.

Leicester City’s flop heading towards exit

Luckily for supporters, this momentary weakness is coming to an end. According to Radio Marca – a Spanish outlet – via SportWitness, there are offers on the table for the Spaniard to return home. This would seem to be the priority for Perez.

The gaffer will want a dedicated and prolific right-winger at some point. On top of this, there continues to be myriad issues with the squad rebuild the side wanted desperately: not enough players have left the side. In fact, ‘Ayo’ could be on his way out just to make space.

The three clubs interested are Villarreal, Real Betis, and Real Sociedad. There is no speculation as to the financial aspects of these offers, though it is likely anything around £15m would be accepted (that is pure guesswork on my part).

Personally, I feel that should the Foxes be able to get outgoings elsewhere on the pitch, such a versatile forward is not an issue to continue to have around – particularly as a bench player. Nevertheless, hopefully for the player his partly dreary time in England is coming to an end.