Ben Chilwell is good. Perhaps even great. And he might be brilliant one day. But for him to potentially become the most expensive defender in football history seems a little weird. The Daily Telegraph report that if Manchester City want the Leicester left-back, it ‘is likely to take a fee in excess of’ Virgil van Dijk’s £75m.
Chilwell is ‘a prime target’ for the Premier League champions and leaders, who have grown tired of Benjamin Mendy’s injuries, and probably his weak Twitter game too.
But the 22-year-old Fox has more than five years left on his King Power contract, comes with the English premium and has shown no signs of wanting to leave a club who will not want to sell.
Leicester held out for £60m for Riyad Mahrez, and drove a bargain so hard for Harry Maguire that it almost brought Jose Mourinho to tears.
A fee greater than £75m therefore does make sense for Leicester, albeit perhaps not for City. They will be too busy offering £150m plus John Stones and Nicolas Otamendi for Van Dijk himself.