Transfer: Leicester City to Bid For 'Promise' Iheanacho

Leicester City are ready to offer Manchester City £20m bid for striker Kelechi Iheanacho . The 20-year-old Nigerian International has been deemed surplus to requirements at the Etihad Stadium by manager Pep Guardiola.

After sporadically featuring under the Spanish tactician last season he’s fallen out of favour and Guardiola, as the Daily Mirror writes, sees no problem offloading him as part of his restructuring this summer.

A number of clubs have since posted their interest in acquiring his services with Leicester keen to beat off the competition from Southampton and West Ham United.

A graduate of City’s youth set-up, after initially joining from homeland club Taye Academy Owerri in 2014, Iheanacho has to date played 64 times for the Manchester-based outfit registering 21 goals and eight assists in all competitions.

Of those matches, 29 came under Guardiola’s watch in which he repaid him with seven goals and three assists, albeit only three of those outings saw Iheanacho complete the full 90 minutes, last one being in City’s 1-1 draw at home to Celtic.

The arrival of Gabriel Jesus has ultimately seen Iheanacho fall down the pecking order with his last appearance being a 19 minute cameo against Watford on the Premier League’s final day of last season.

 

Nominally a striker,though is capable of playing as a deep-lying forward, if Iheanacho is to join the Foxes then he’ll most likely be competing with Islam Slimani, Shinji Okazaki and Leonardo Ulloa – that is if all three remain at the club which for the time being they are – for the right to partner Jamie Vardy up front.

This is due to newly installed permanent boss Craig Shakespeare likely to retain the 4-4-2 system that served the club well under his brief tenure as caretaker boss and during their historic championship winning season under his predecessor Claudio Ranieri.

Vardy, who finished as the club’s leading scorer in the previous two seasons (with 15 and 24 goals respectively), is expected to continue leading the line but what’s not certain is who’ll play alongside him. If we go by the numbers from last season then it favours Iheanacho who bests the three aforementioned Leicester strikers when it comes to goals scored, shot accuracy, chances created and successful take ons per 90 minutes.

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