Brendan Rodgers’s Leicester City reportedly want to replace Wolves loanee Ryan Bennett – could Juventus’s Merih Demiral move to the Premier League?
Leicester City are still interested in signing Juventus defender Merih Demiral with the Mercury suggesting that the Turkish powerhouse has been lined up as a potential permanent successor for Ryan Bennett.
In an era where almost every single top-flight transfer is preceded by a lengthy saga, the deal that brought Bennett to the East Midlands on January deadline day came right out of the blue.
No one expected the 30-year-old to leave Wolverhampton Wanderers but there he was, striding through the doors of the King Power after agreeing a short-term loan.
Leicester have the option to sign Bennett permanently for £5 million though, as the Mercury points out, that is already an unlikely scenario. The ex-Norwich and Peterborough man has not been included in a matchday squad for each of The Foxes’s last five Premier League games and Brendan Rodgers’s side are already scouring the market for permanent replacements.
One of those, Demiral, has been on Leicester’s radar for a number of months now.
BleacherReport claimed that a £34 million youngster who takes his full-blooded approach from boyhood idol Nemanja Vidic was excited by the prospect of joining Turkey team-mate Caglar Soyuncu at the 2016 Premier League champions in January
An ill-timed injury stopped the speculation in it’s tracks though, as the Mercury points out, a deal could be revisited at the end of the season.
Unfortunately for Leicester, Demiral had forced his way into Juve’s starting XI before his campaign ended prematurely, even keeping the much-admired Matthijs de Ligt out of Maurizio Sarri’s side on occasions.
Demiral may now be out of Leicester’s reach.
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