The outrageous transfer Leicester nearly pulled off before their demise

Long gone are the days now where Leicester City was everyone's second favourite team to cheer on.

Indeed, when Claudio Ranieri helped the Foxes lift the Premier League in style in 2016, as a completely transformed outfit, they were seen as an unbelievable example of both grit and quality working in perfect harmony, as opposed to just splashing the cash to win titles.

Ten years on from this unfathomable Premier League title triumph, Leicester will be playing League One football next season, with the demise of the club a heartbreaking tale, rather than a feel-good story.

Leicester desperately need a rebuild

Leicester's off-season is vital, as they will need a mass rebuild to pick up the pieces and go again, to try and instantly return to the Championship.

Already, it looks as if they won't be persisting with Gary Rowett going forward, who has just one win in charge of the crisis-ridden Foxes, with a left-field replacement reportedly in the works, courtesy of NEC manager Dick Schreuder.

Alongside needing a desperate change of manager, there needs to be fresh blood in through the door on the pitch who cares about the state of the club.

The likes of Harry Winks, in particular, need to be waved on, as his outburst against Portsmouth earlier in the season showed him to be a petulant child, rather than a proud servant of the club.

Truthfully, Leicester need to bring in signings more in-keeping with the likes of Wes Morgan, Robert Huth, and Kiernan Dewsbury-Hall from recent years gone by, who had both the quality to perform, but also the determination to roll up their sleeves when times were tough.

It's crazy to think, looking back, at the players who graced the King Power turf at their dizzying prime, when watching the lifeless personnel right now, with the Midlands side managing to get a hefty £92m combined for N'Golo Kante and Ryad Mahrez, when selling the much-loved duo to Chelsea and Manchester City.

Around this time, Leicester even approached Ousmane Dembele, with the winger just a humble hotshot rising the ranks at Rennes, before going on to become a sensational Ballon d'Or winner with Paris Saint-Germain.

Leicester's failed pursuit of Dembele

In the summer directly after winning the Premier League title, Leicester very nearly won themselves the tricky Frenchman.

Indeed, it has now come to light that the Foxes tried to snap up Dembele before he went on to become a world-beater at PSG, with Ranieri on the phone to the skilful attacker to try and convince him to move to England.

Dembele would turn down a move in favour of going to German giants Borussia Dortmund, instead, and while a move to Germany didn't go entirely to plan - with only ten goals put away for the Black and Yellow - he has certainly exploded into life on the books of the Ligue 1 titans.

The 28-year-old, who has also called Barcelona home during his globetrotting career, would pick up the Ballon d'Or accolade last year in September for his insane exploits with PSG, while Leicester were getting used to life back in the EFL.

He very much deserved this esteemed recognition, too, with a devastating 32 goals fired home last season, helping the Parisians to a jaw-dropping Champions League success.

While Dembele's career looks to be on a constant upward trajectory, Leicester are very much in a dark spot currently, with a weird sense of 'what could have been' if they'd somehow got their hands on such a spellbinding talent in the infancy of his playing days.

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