Leicester City may be battening down the hatches this summer to try to keep their best players from the clutches of Champions League clubs, but it may prove to be impossible to fight them off, believes former Celtic and Scotland manager Gordon Strachan.
Following their title success of 2016 City were able to hold on to top scorer Jamie Vardy, but were powerless to stop N’Golo Kante leaving and then were forced into selling Danny Drinkwater and Riyad Mahrez.
Strachan believes new City boss Brendan Rodgers may face an equally difficult task to hold onto the likes of Ben Chilwell, who has been linked with Manchester City, Harry Maguire, who is the subject of interest of Manchester United, and James Maddison, who reportedly has Tottenham Hotspur targeting him.
“Listen, if Barcelona can’t keep Neymar then everyone will struggle,” said Strachan, speaking to LeicestershireLive as an ambassador for Paddy Power.
“Everybody is for sale. I scream at the tv when I hear a manager say a player is not for sale. Everybody is for sale.
“There is always a price that you will sell at, and the good thing about being a selling club is that you must have been successful.
“You will have success and someone will want to buy your players. Look at Celtic and Wanyama, and Van Dijk, all these players have moved on.
“If you want to keep your players be rotten!”
“The problem you have then is when you have success like that people buy your top players. That is how it goes.
“It is the same when you get to sixth or seventh in the league, clubs will buy your top players.
“It is hard to step up because people will buy your best players. Southampton did that, whenever they got close they lost their best players.
“On one hand you get success but on the other hands other clubs want to steal your manager and best players. That is the problem you have got.
“Players being ambitious will want to play at the Champions League level.”
Gordon Strachan is a Paddy Power ambassador, read his columns at news.paddypower.com
