Martin Keown has urged Leicester City hero Wesley Fofana to stay at the club for another year if he is to aid his development despite rumours picking up the pace touting the star with a move to Chelsea.
Fofana joined the Foxes in 2020 from Saint-Etienne as a 19-year-old, and instantly forced his way into the first-team with spirited performances that saw him appear 38 times in his first campaign under Brendan Rodgers.
However, a season-ending leg break injury in pre-season saw an end to his good spell of form and may have thrown other clubs off the scent of potentially signing him in the future, but he returned to action eight months later and picked up where he left off.
As a result, Chelsea especially have registered their interest in securing his services and appear to be edging closer to an £80m deal after being left out of Leicester’s squad to face Southampton.
But Keown has told the club that they cannot continuously afford to let their top players go if they are to get back to a European hunt – and Fofana is one of those, with Keown urging him to stay for another year.
“Is Leicester always a stepping stone for players within their careers, even for their manager?” Keown said via talkSPORT.
“It’s not a good look, in terms of they’ve been very successful in what they’ve done and this is a sort of period of consolidation, almost, and hanging on to what they’ve got might be a victory.
“Clearly he [Rodgers] is going to have to sell somebody. But if that happens so late in the window who does he go and buy now if Fofana leaves for all that money?
“But the success of Fofana is down to Brendan, so there’s a little bit of loyalty here. He’s trying to keep the player calm, he doesn’t want him to overreact.
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“If the player says outright look I want to go that’s it, I sincerely hope he doesn’t do that. He will be a top player but I think he just needs to stay there for another year.”