How Leicester City would cope if Harry Maguire moved to Manchester United

If Leicester City plan to infiltrate the Premier League’s top six, selling their star players to those already there does not seem like a sound tactic.

Leicester have already strengthened Chelsea and Manchester City’s grips on the top spots with the sales of N’Golo Kante and Riyad Mahrez, and could now help Manchester United by agreeing a transfer for Harry Maguire, who is reportedly ready to leave for Old Trafford.

In the cases of Kante and Mahrez, the transfers were unavoidable, Chelsea meeting the former’s meagre £32m release clause, and Leicester unable to risk another disappearing act from the latter.

In an ideal world, City would ward off interest from United in Maguire for a second successive summer and the big centre-back will be in Brendan Rodgers’ line-up for the first game of the new campaign.

But given it is the second summer of speculation, persuading the 26-year-old to again ignore interest from one of the world’s biggest clubs may prove difficult.

And with a state-of-the-art training ground to be built and a stadium to be expanded, the mooted £65million would be rather handy.

There is no doubt that City would miss Maguire’s talents.

There are few centre-backs in the league that have his ability on the ball, both driving out of defence and splitting the lines with incisive passes, and there are few players as dangerous at set-pieces.

But the truth is, they could cope with his departure.

Jonny Evans has been superb of late, prompting Rodgers to describe him as “outstanding”, £19m Caglar Soyuncu has had a year to settle and will hopefully soon show why he arrived with a reputation as a fine, ball-playing centre-back, while skipper Wes Morgan, who recently signed a one-year contract extension, proved against Burnley that he still has plenty to offer.

And this season, City concede more goals per game when Maguire starts compared to the above trio.

Not only that, but Filip Benkovic, fresh from a spell under Rodgers at Celtic, will return to provide further competition and plenty of ability.

At 78 per cent, Maguire has the best aerial success rate of Premier League players to have contested 50 duels.

Benkovic’s aerial success rate in the Europa League this season is 89 per cent.

And looking even deeper, development squad quartet Josh Knight, Sam Hughes, Darnell Johnson and Alex Pascanu are among the best youngsters at the club and will likely be sent on loan next season in order to gain senior experience ahead of a crack at the first team.

City have depth, talent and a great mix of youth and experience at centre-back. In no position are they more prepared for a big-name exit.

And City have already proven they can cope when star players leave. Aside from the anomaly of the title win, they have made steady progress up the Premier League, despite the departures of Kante, Mahrez and Danny Drinkwater.

The money from Maguire’s sale could help finance a likely club-record deal for Youri Tielemans, who, in only six games, has made a huge impact.

After his red card at Burnley, Maguire will be suspended for the meeting with Bournemouth. As of right now, a game without Maguire feels less of a problem than a game without Tielemans.

What would you do? Would you sell Maguire to United if they offered £65m? Vote in the poll below.

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