Leicester City are the only Premier League club still to make a signing this summer, and Orkun Kokcu of Feyenoord is one of Brendan Rodgers’ primary targets. But as far as departures go – the Foxes are still holding strong and are not yet letting their most sought-after players go. Among those is the versatile midfielder Boubakary Soumare.Monaco are interested but are offering too low of an amount – if you ask the executives from the King Power Stadium. Monte Carlo club sent their first bid, worth 17.5 million euros which was quickly rejected. Foxes’ boss Rodgers and people around him are certain they can either get what they paid for the footballer or earn some profit.🚨 BREAKING!!!Leicester City are now close to striking a deal with AS Monaco for Boubakary Soumaré for around €19m. Soumaré has agreed terms and wants a return to France.This leads to an overall loss of only £1M. I’ll take that for someone who hasn’t played.🏅| @LCFCHQ pic.twitter.com/D1IpQPeBz2— Team Leicester City (@TeamLCFC) July 20, 2022 Leicester forked out 27 million euros to get Soumare, who shone as Lille won the Ligue 1 title in 2020-21, but the midfielder struggled to adapt to life in England, starting only 18 games across last season.Brendan Rodgers is willing to let him leave to generate funds to refresh his squad, even though Soumare joined Leicester only last summer.The Senegalese-rooted footballer is still highly regarded in France – Monaco want to make him the replacement for Aurelien Tchouameni, who joined Real Madrid for 80 million euros earlier in the window.Rodgers said in the spring he was looking for five or six new players. Asked about Leicester’s business last weekend, he said: “I want to improve the squad, I want to develop the squad. I said that midway through last year, but if it’s difficult financially, I really respect the club, so I don’t go to war with them.”It’s unfortunate. We have to do some work and if we can do that, then hopefully we can affect the squad because if we are going to compete anywhere near where we have been, then we need to be able to do that. If not, then it’s a different expectation.”##NAJAVA_MECA_6518207##Along with Soumare, a number of fringe players at Leicester are available this summer but the Foxes have yet to move them on. Jannik Vestergaard – another of last summer’s signings – is on that list along with Ayoze Perez, Hamza Choudhury and Caglar Soyuncu.The future of Leicester’s engine midfielder Youri Tielemans is still unknown – Arsenal have been the most mentioned as the Belgian’s next destination but the arrival of Fabio Vieira from Porto made the need for Tielemans less urgent.
