With four games of their Premier League season to go, Dean Smith has Leicester City out of the bottom three by the skin of their teeth.
Only goal difference is keeping them above the relegation places, so the Foxes players know that they have to give everything in their matches against Fulham, Liverpool, Newcastle and West Ham if they want to stand any chance of staying in the English top-flight for at least another season.
It remains a tall order and it’s therefore no surprise to understand that some Leicester players are being linked with a move away from the King Power Stadium.
Daily Mail note that Harvey Barnes could be the latest young star to be tempted to move elsewhere, with local rivals, Aston Villa, certainly looking to go places under Unai Emery.
Barcelona’s director of football, Mateu Alemany, is expected to shortly be announced as having taking up the same role at Villa, and if he’s able to work the same magic in the Midlands as he has in Catalonia, supporters of the club need to strap themselves in for the ride.
Despite the club being over a billion euros in debt at one point per ESPN, Alemany still managed to sign 19 players for Barca: Memphis Depay, Eric Garcia, Sergio Aguero, Yusuf Demir, Luuk de Jong, Emerson Royal, Ferran Torres, Pierre-Emerick Aubameyang, Dani Alves, Adama Traore, Raphinha, Jules Kounde, Robert Lewandowski, Pablo Torre, Franck Kessie, Andreas Christensen, Marcos Alonso, Hector Bellerin and Julian Araujo, per Mundo Deportivo.
He clearly knows how to get deals done even in the most trying of circumstances and that could serve Villa well in the coming seasons.
Should Leicester drop into the Championship, and even if they don’t, it would seem that they need to be wary of the sway that their Europa League-chasing local rivals will have.