With players like Jamie Vardy and Marc Albrighton among those whose contracts expire in less than a year, there may be some difficult goodbyes next summer.
Twelve senior players from Leicester City’s squad permanently left the team this summer, and nine new players joined on a variety of permanent and loan contracts.
After their contracts with City expired at the end of June, eight of the twelve players that left did so on free transfers, forcing the team to go forward with a rebuild. With 12 players now on track to leave the club next summer, they might require another squad makeover in a year.
Currently, Jamie Vardy is finishing his senior season at the King Power Stadium. Since he participates in every game and has an impact in the majority of them, Enzo Maresca likes him, thus it is not certain that this will be his last season with the team. However, he is no longer the starter and will turn 37 in January, so there could be a tearful farewell next summer.
Given that Marc Albrighton also has a contract expiring, the club’s two surviving champions may say goodbye twice. Albrighton has received appreciation from Maresca as well, but the elevation of players from the development squad and the addition of new wingers during the transfer window have knocked Albrighton down the list of priorities. During the defeat to Hull, he wasn’t even on the bench.
There are four players whose futures are uncertain in the meantime as their contracts expire in 2024 and all four are likely to leave unless the club is promoted. Wilfred Ndidi and Kelechi Iheanacho are likely to stay on if City return to the Premier League, but promotion may not be enough to keep Jannik Vestergaard or Dennis Praet at the club.
One option that has been exercised in Hamza Choudhury’s contract this summer is to add a year to his contract and keep him at King Power Stadium, but City will have to offer him new terms if they want to renew it again by this time next year.
And goalkeeper Alex Smithies could leave without playing a single game for the club, falling even further under Maresca. His two-year contract expires in 2024. Then four players on loan were brought in this summer. Callum Doyle and Cesare Casadei are set to return to parent clubs Manchester City and Chelsea, where both have bright futures.
Both Yunus Akgun and Abdul Fatawu are more than likely to stay for more than a year as some of the terms of their loan deals can be finalized, meaning their contracts will be in perpetuity. However, when things settle down, they will return to Galatasaray and Sporting Lisbon next summer.
There are a number of players on the team whose contract status is still unknown and they could also leave next summer unless new contracts are signed. Kasey McAteer, Wanya Marcal and Ben Nelson are all contracted with the club from summer 2021 to early 2022, but have not announced an expiration date.
The same goes for Luke Thomas. He signed a new contract with King Power following his breakthrough in 2020 with no confirmed end date. The deal is supposed to last until 2024.
