Leicester City Summer Shopping - Wingers

Hello, and welcome to our annual Leicester City Summer Shopping series, where we take a look at positions where the Foxes might be considering buying. Then, we find a group of players who have almost no chance of coming to City and explain why they would be great buys!

This year, we’re adding a wrinkle: We’re going to look at players who have legitimately been linked with moves to the East Midlands. We’ll also look at how the players fared statistically on WhoScored.com and what Transfermarkt.com believes their current value to be. We have generally avoided players who were promoted this year or have Champions League football guaranteed next year. I say “generally” because two of the most strongly linked players are with league champions.

Wingers are fun. We’re going to talk about a lot of wingers because they’re fast and they score and they cross and sometimes, but not often, they contribute to the defense as well. Leicester are probably in the market for a right winger, but there have been some credible-ish links to right wingers as well, so we’ll talk about ‘em all.

I really like wingers.

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Who We’re Linked With:

Noni Madueke
Club: PSV Eindhoven
Age: 19
Foot: Left
Rating: 6.89
Value: €16,000,000

This England youth international is a future star. His rating is lower than you’d expect due to his being used primarily as a substitute at PSV. He is a menace on the ball, capable of dribbling past you, slipping it to a striker, or taking the shot himself. His seven goals and four assists are awfully impressive for a teenager in a good league coming off the bench.

Photo by Broer van den Boom/BSR Agency/Getty Images

Matheus Pereira
Club: West Bromwich Albion
Age: 25
Foot: Left
Rating: 6.96
Value: €13,000,000

Pereira is primarily an attacking midfielder, but he plays on the wing often enough that we’re going to talk about him here. West Brom were...not good...last year but Pereira stood out as a diamond in the Hawthorns. A midfielder who gets 11 goals and 6 assists for a Sam Allardyce-managed club is borderline incredible.

Photo by Alex Livesey - Danehouse/Getty Images

Jeremie Boga
Club: Sassuolo
Age: 24
Foot: Right
Rating: 6.85
Value: €22,000,000

I’m not certain what the appeal is here, but there have been numerous reports of our interest in Boga. He’s really more of a striker playing out wide in that he’s a good finisher but he’s not much of a distributor or defender.

Dwight McNeil
Club: Burnley
Age: 21
Foot: Left
Rating: 6.87
Value: €22,000,000

McNeil is a player of genuine class among Sean Dyche’s squad of grafters. He’s an old school wide man who looks to distribute first, second, and third. Think “a left-footed Marc Albrighton” in attack. He’s not the most obvious fit, but he’s a long term target and he’d give us a very different option than Harvey Barnes on the left.

Photo by Alex Livesey/Getty Images

Arnaut Danjuma
Club: Bournemouth
Age: 24
Foot: Right
Rating: 7.21
Value: €12,000,000

Another left-winger, Danjuma is more akin to Barnes in terms of style although he’s more of a tricky dribbler than a direct speedster. His 17 goals and 7 assists demonstrate that he’s absolutely ruthless in attack, but in defense, he possesses a lot of ruth. If I were required to compare him to another player, I’d probably pick Cengiz Under.

Other Options:

Kamal Sowah
Club: OH Leuven (on loan from Leicester City)
Age: 21
Foot: Left
Rating: 6.81
Value: €3,300,000

Sowah offers tremendous pace and direct running , but he’s still raw. He’s not much of a crosser yet and that’s going to be a big part off the job. He is, however, absolutely electric to watch and you can dream about what he’ll become when he polishes some of the rougher aspects of his game.

Photo by Plumb Images/Getty Images

Jeremy Doku
Club: Rennes
Age: 19
Foot: Right
Rating: 7.07
Value: €22,000,000

Just watch him play for Belgium. Doku is an unplayable winger; more of a right forward than midfielder, and he’s going to cost a good deal more than 22m if he keeps playing like this. Brilliant on the ball, brilliant runs off of it, and brings a huge amount of energy to his club. Plus, and I cannot stress this enough, Leicester City simply cannot have enough Belgians.

Photo by Sylvain Lefevre/Getty Images

Ademola Lookman
Club: Fulham
Age: 23
Foot: Right
Rating: 6.92
Value: €13,000,000

Very similar to Pereira in that he’s more of a central attacker than a winger, but he’s good out wide as well. He’s also far too good for his current club and put up some really nice numbers in a difficult situation. Very clever on the ball in close quarters and capable of unlocking a defense one on one.

Domenico Berardi
Club: Sassuolo
Age: 26
Foot: Left
Rating: 7.42
Value: €35,000,000

Almost certainly out of our price range, but he’s the pick of the litter if we want to pull splash the cash. Berardi is an ideal inverted right winger, capable of delivering a cross, scoring, passing, and even helping out tracking back. There are no weaknesses in his game, but it seems his current club are aware of this. The 17 goals and 7 assists probably are probably what did it.

Photo by Marco Luzzani/Getty Images

Leon Bailey
Club: Bayer Leverkusen
Age: 23
Foot: Left
Rating: 7.26
Value: €35,000,000

Younger than Berardi, more famous, and not quite as good (yet), Bailey is a lightning fast left-footed wide man which means that he is going to be very, very, expensive. Not as adept defensively as Berardi, but still has room to improve and might wind up being even better in attack.

Photo by Max Maiwald/DeFodi Images via Getty Images

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