Leicester's released and retained list is out: https://www.lcfc.com/news/3529945?lang=en Youri Tielemans, Çağlar Söyüncü, Daniel Amartey, Nampalys Mendy, Ryan Bertrand, Ayoze Pérez and Tetê will all bring their spells at King Power Stadium to an end. The Club remains in discussions with captain Jonny Evans with regard to his future beyond the expiration of his current deal this month, while an option has been exercised to extend the contract of midfielder Hamza Choudhury to June 2024.
Ryan had only 4 appearances in two seasons. Also where is Vesty on that list? Or is his contract longer? Just looked contract to 2024.
Vestergaard is on the "we are resigned to his continued presence" list. Between the players out of contract, and those they'll need to sell in order to survive financially -- Maddison, Barnes, Iheanacho and Ndidi, presumably -- they aren't going to have much squad left come August.
I know someone who chatted to Vesty, he didn’t want to leave Saints but the Leicester deal was financially very good for him and the club wanted him out. Doesn’t like being there but happy to sit on a his massive wages until his contract finishes
That’s not the worst idea. I don’t know how fit he is and what stopped him making appearances for Leicester, but I seem to recall him being pretty decent in a back three for Koeman and would be a good leader/example if we’re sticking with young defenders like Simeu/Tino/Larios
Bertrand is a solid no from me tbh, I know we aren’t going for PL quality players now, but he was so far off the pace for us 3-4 years ago. I’m not convinced that he would be up to scratch in the Championship and would rather we went with Perraud and Larios tbh.
He was quality for us in his prime and I think thats what people remember, but he had seriously dropped off in the last couple of seasons he was here and KWP played out of position was a significant improvement imo. His form at Leicester when he did play backs that up. Unpopular opinion but selling Targett when we did was more of a mistake as he was on the verge of overtaking Bertrand at the time.
Probably right. Target has turned into a good player. When he actually played for us I wasn’t massively impressed though. OK let’s not get Bertrand back!
I still don't think Targett is up to much, honestly. He was binned as soon as Dean Smith was out of the picture at Villa and has already been moved aside to the bench so that Newcastle could play a centre back in his position. Has appeared in less than half of the league games in each of his two seasons with Howe. But definitely a no to bringing Bertrand back.
Targett doesn’t have the pace to play full back for a PL team. His best season by far was at Fulham in the Championship where he could basically sit in the LWB role and be more attack minded with his crossing because they were dominating every game and he didn’t need to track back and defend all that often, think Danny Fox in our Championship promotion season. Put him in a PL side where he would be expected to go up and down the flank and he doesn’t have the athleticism to get back often enough for me. That is the most crucial attribute for a modern day full back really, see Kyle Walker being one of the great full backs of recent times despite being bang average at actual football
Never forget Targett though v Arsenal away and his ****-housery winding up the Arsenal fans by wasting time when we went to take a throw in (very slowly) and then placed the ball back on the floor for another player to take it