Leicester City manager Brendan Rodgers has admitted that the club’s top players like Youri Tielemans may look for transfers away once bigger clubs show an interest.
Tielemans is a transfer target for Arsenal ahead of the summer, and the Belgium international may well end up having other suitors after a hugely impressive spell at the King Power Stadium.
Leicester fans will be used to seeing their star names leave, with the likes of N’Golo Kante and Ben Chilwell being snapped up by Chelsea in recent years, while Riyad Mahrez left for Manchester City and Harry Maguire made a big-money move to Manchester United.
Tielemans’ fine form means it wouldn’t be surprising if he was next to leave the Foxes for a big six side, and Rodgers seems to be preparing for this eventuality.
The Northern Irish tactician insists he is a realist and knows that many clubs end up seeing star players poached by bigger names, so his comments could well offer hope to the Gunners in their pursuit of a new midfielder to give them an upgrade on the likes of Thomas Partey and Granit Xhaka.
“I think, obviously, with his [Tielemans’] contract running down, then I’m pretty sure there will be teams looking at him,” Rodgers told Sky Sports, as quoted by the Leicester Mercury.
“But I’m also a realist, as well, and we are real as a football club.
“You’ll get people asking, ‘can you hang on to these players for the next six, seven years?’
“But the reality is, if a player does really well at Leicester, he may want to leave and move on to another club. For us, it’s just being ready for that.”
He added: “I think there are bigger clubs than ourselves that will always lose their best players.
“I don’t think you can shy away from that. Some of the biggest clubs in this country will lose their best players.
“It’s just trying to have that pipeline behind that to replace them.”