Over the years Leicester City have been involved in some heavy moves, with players moving the English record transfer fee to the next level and even pushing the World record also once, when Peter Shilton became the most expensive goalkeeper on the planet earth, signing for Stoke City for a fee of £325.000 which at the time was the World record fee for a player in that position.
Peter Shilton had to wait a number of seasons before he had his best and most memorable years in football, appearing for Nottingham Forest and winning two European Cup finals and also the League Cup twice and the League once, he also managed to win back his place in the England goal as he continued to play on and also appeared in three World Cup tournaments.
Embed from Getty ImagesDavid Nish, the youngest captain ever and to date in the FA Cup final, was also sold from the club, Derby County playing £225.000 for his services as he went on to win England caps and of course being a key player in that 1974/75 team that won the League. Leicester City had a great team in the 70’s, but looking back David Nish had a better experience with Derby County and no one can take away that League winners medal.
The third player, who also appeared in the 1969 FA Cup final for Leicester City together with Nish and Shilton was Allan Clarke. Leicester CIty did break the English transfer fee when signing Clarke for Fulham in the summer of 1968, paying £150.000, but just a year after Don Revie splashed out £165.000 and while at Leeds United he went on to win the FA Cup (72), League (74) and playing in the European Cup final (75), adding to that making his England debut in the 1970 World Cup finals and in total playing 19 times for England and scoring 10 goals.
Going forward you have the likes of Gary McAllister who had relatively difficult time to flourish with Leicester City in the 2nd tier and when he moved to Leeds United he was part of a journey that including winning the league in 1992. After his record move he had a glorious life in football, appearing in the World Cup and Euro’s with Scotland and also playing for Liverpool later in his career.
Embed from Getty ImagesIn recent time Riyad Mahrez, N’Golo Kantè and Harry Maguire has taken the upper hand as they have made record moves to Manchester City, Chelsea and Manchester United. This probably will be the experience of Ben Chilwell as well, while Danny Drinkwater’s move didn’t turn out as well as you would have expected.
All those footballers made their break in football at Leicester City so sadly that they left a bit too early to really cement this club at a higher level, but that’s been the story of this club and it’s really sad to see it all continue, though managers have over the years managed to find replacements but also struggled heavily and seen the club falling apart.
Often when the money has been made available most managers have looked at quantity instead of quality and sometimes overlooked the importance of such a player and just ignored the fact and tried to solve the problem taking the ostrich approach.
Embed from Getty ImagesPeter Shilton was replaced with Mark Wallington, not the same quality, but it was one player that made it possible to continue at the highest level, but he never played a single game for England and he had not the same quality, but again seen as a good replacement. Dennis Rofe became Jimmy Bloomfield’s answer to the gap left behind by David Nish, and Rofe was a fine and good replacement, but again not in range with David Nish.
Leicester City fans tends to just forget a player that leaves, and believe that a new face will follow and be even better, but the hard facts are that players have moved up in their careers while Leicester City have seen a decline or not being able to compete on the same level as the player they have sold. So the learning lesson of this is to of course not sell the best players to another club and at least not a competitor as they have done season in and season out.
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